Activists sue military and police over alleged spying of anti-war groups

Anti-war activists in Washington state are suing police officials and a military analyst who they say infiltrated and spied on their organization, violating their right to freedom of speech. The lawsuit was filed in Seattle’s US District Court on the behalf of 13 people involved with the activist group Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, which opposes using civilian ports to ship military equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Larry Hildes is the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He explains how the group was infiltrated.

“They had an Army spy in their midst, a man named John Towery who works for the Force Protection Office at First Corps at Fort Lewis who was spying on meetings, having private discussions with activists who thought he was their friend, but gathering information to the point that there meetings when he would go out every hour and send text messages to his boss Tom Rudd, who was the head of the Force Protection Office at Fort Lewis about what was happening at meetings, where the demonstrations were going to be at, who the players were, who to watch for…And often times people would get arrested. People would get brutalized, people would get followed and harassed.”

Hildes says in addition to violating his clients’ First and Fourth Amendment rights, it's also a violation of a federal law enacted in 1878.

“Under the Posse Comitatus Act, it is illegal for the US Army or any branch of the military to engage in civilian law enforcement. Spying on meetings, unless there’s a threat of actual terrorist activity, is civilian law enforcement. And certainly arresting people in a public street is civilian law enforcement. They can’t do this.”

The plaintiffs discovered the spy after filing a public records request from the City of Olympia and receiving hundreds of pages of "Force Protection" memos that included Towery's name as a source of information on anti-war activists. According to the News Tribune, officials at Fort Lewis have confirmed Towery's employment with them. Military officials have declined further comment. The suit also names the City of Olympia and a U.S. Coast Guard employee.

Thanks to Mark Taylor Canfield for production assistance on this story.