SFPD Red Squad Cmdr. Rick Bruce Complicit In Oakland Docks Police Brutality

State's terror analysts reined in

Lockyer tells them to avoid intelligence on religious, political groups without clear suspicion

By Ian Hoffman and Sean Holstege
Oakland Tribune Staff Writers

Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - California law-enforcement officers are getting new marching orders in combating terrorism: Don't collect intelligence on religious and political activities without clear suspicion that people or groups are involved in a crime.

On Monday, state attorney general Bill Lockyer promised sweeping new guidelines on intelligence gathering and surveillance of people not suspected of crimes.

Lockyer's commitment trailed 19 months of pressure by civil libertarians and a series of reports by the Oakland Tribune showing how state intelligence analysts issued warnings about political protest groups.

Under a Tribune public records request, Lockyer released 30 such communiques, labelled "Terrorism Advisory" or "Law Enforcement Advisory," that name 14 anti-war, environmental or left-wing activist groups active in the Bay Area.

"I strongly agree with the need to make clear that we don't investigate religious and political groups unless there's been criminal activity," Lockyer said Monday after negotiations with attorneys for ACLU Northern California and ACLU Southern California.

Civil libertarians roundly praised Lockyer's move, believed to be among the first state-ordered constraints on intelligence gathering since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

"We're very heartened," said Mark Schlosberg, police practices policy director for ACLU Northern California. "These are core civil liberties issues, protected by California's constitution, and we appreciate the effort made by Attorney General Lockyer to issue these guide-

lines."

State Justice Department staff also are re-writing an official state definition of terrorism to mirror the one used in the federal Homeland Security Act of 2002, as a guide to intelligence analysts at the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC). Unlike federal law, however, the state's terrorism guide will pointedly steer intelligence analysts away from looking at protest acts of civil disobedience or minor law-breaking to make a political point.

"We hope to do a variety of things to be sure that our agents and allies in law enforcement don't interpret it in ways that would allow spying on political groups or infiltrating mosques or things of that sort that I guess some believe could be done under the federal guidelines," Lockyer said. "We explicitly reject any work of that sort in California. It doesn't have criminal predicate and that's the basis of our investigative activities."

Justice Department attorneys plan to give examples as an illustration to intelligence analysts -- such as a protester who lays down in front of a bus.

"That's not something we consider as having any causal relationship or any factual relationship to terrorism activity," said Peter Siggins, Lockyer's chief deputy for legal affairs.

"As opposed to a protester who throws a brick through a window," added Steve Cooney, the deputy attorney general for administration and policy.

"It depends on the window," said Siggins. "We don't see as particularly terrorist-related someone breaking the front window of Macy's because they want to protest the fact that they sell fur coats.... To attack that under the rubric of terrorism is, I think, not right."

The exchange illustrates the kind of uncertain territory where CATIC's intelligence analysts repeatedly have ventured, issuing bulletins labelled as "terrorism advisories" on protest events.

Since its inception on Sept. 25, 2001, at a press conference featuring Gov. Gray Davis and Lockyer, CATIC has issued 30 special advisories that mention political groups in the Bay Area alone.

In addition to the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, which the FBI labels terrorist organizations, CATIC also kept tabs on Critical Mass, Black Bloc, the Ruckus Society, International ANSWER, Earth First and nuclear-disarmament groups.

Also mentioned: Bay Area Pledge, Not In Our Name, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Sea Shepherd, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, the Bay Area Independent Media Center and the International Action Center.

CATIC's Situation Unit issued the advisories statewide and across the nation on an electronic law enforcement network. The communiques show that state terrorism analysts were worried that anarchists would hijack political rallies and steer them into violence. On at least one occasion, CATIC's intelligence analysts appeared to solicit law enforcement agents to attend events.

On Feb. 7, CATIC warned of an upcoming symposium at Fresno State University, in which an Earth Liberation Front member who had been convicted for firebombing an animal research center would be speaking. The bulletin notes that there was no "tangible threat," but advised law enforcement to "remain vigilant," and then to communicate with authorities if they planned to attend the event. Lockyer's office kept secret the identity of those contacts.

A heavily blacked-out advisory on the "Iraqi Threat Assessment" describes California's vulnerability from impending war "mainly in the form of civil disobedience via anti-war activities." Another alert compares the anti-war movement to that during the Vietnam War.

The documents reinforce mounting evidence that CATIC's April 2 dispatch about an upcoming protest at the Port of Oakland was hardly isolated, although Lockyer has consistently held that it was a mistake and an aberration.

"Frankly there hasn't been a lot of abuse that we've found of that system," Lockyer said Monday. "As I've reread the April 2 bulletin on the Port of Oakland, frankly if it hadn't been on the CATIC letterhead, I don't think anyone would have cared. But it was on the CATIC letterhead and that was a mistake."

He repeated earlier claims that "We don't collect information on individuals or groups without a criminal predicate."

The April 2 alert warned local authorities that a "potential for violence" existed at the protest, based on CATIC's assessment of Ruckus Society tactics.

A day earlier, CATIC issued a lengthy advisory entitled "American Eco-Terrorists Declare War." The notice quotes an anonymous Earth Liberation Front spokesman, who "urged radicals to ditch 'pointless' protests and wage outright acts of terror 'using any means necessary' "against "American military establishments, urban centers, corporations, government buildings and media outlets."

The April 1 alert goes on to warn of "Black Bloc techniques" and noted that the group had claimed responsibility for $43 million in vandalism.

On April 4, Oakland Sgt. Derwin Longmire sent an e-mail to 14 colleagues, including those who supervised the protest, paraphrasing the CATIC alert. The e-mail went out on the same day Oakland police met with San Francisco Deputy Police Chief Rick Bruce to formulate a strategy and told him they would compensate for thin resources by using "less-than-lethal force," if needed.

On April 7, OPD officers fired wooden slugs and bean bags at protesters, resulting in people being hospitalized, a city investigation and a civil rights lawsuit.

A year before CATIC warned about potential violence at Oakland's docks, it issued a very similar warning about a bicycle activist rally in Berkeley on May Day.

"A Reclaim the Streets party will be held in Berkeley by anarchists, Critical Mass participants -- bicyclists -- and others," the April 30, 2002 communique said, adding that at a similar protest a year before protesters "set trash cans on fire" and "burned a car in the street."

Lockyer bristled at the suggestion that sending such warnings from an anti-terrorism intelligence center under a heading that read "Midday Intelligence Briefing On Terrorism Activities" implied a potential link with terrorism and a greater threat to the state's security.

"If people want to do that, OK, it's just very unfair in my view," Lockyer said. "I've agreed we're going to scrub that and narrow it and make local law enforcement less informed in order to address anyone's sensitivity about this topic."

The California Justice Department still will issue those warnings, he said, just not under the insignia of its anti-terrorism center.

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman [at] angnewspapers.com and Sean Holstege at sholstege [at] angnewspapers.com.