Hemisphere was a program name for an AT&T data mining operation that changed codenames and now is still a thing, totally for the same purposes and stuff, but with more judge lunches or some nonsense. Anyway I was interested when I read the manual on the program and it had several slides about Parallel Construction so…. I blogged it and a friend tipped the New York Times. So I made a story that made the Paper of (checks notes). Anyway, moving on. That was in 2013, so it was impressive for some circles for a minute or two back then.
The Bank of America turned out to have a Social Media Trolling Team, or at the least former Washington State Patrol Fusion Liaison Officer, now private BofA Security, described it as such in 2013 when she made contact with Olympia Police personnel focused on Anarchists and fellow travelers, as if they were Sons of Anarchy and Serious Gang Business. I outed the emails in which she doxxed herself and her team to her would-be partners at JBLM upon the Deschutes, also known as POO/PD for Port of Olympia / Police Department.
They POO/PD the Deschutes. Come on, it’s scat humor MEATWHISTLES LOVE THAT.
Of course I am a real boy.
- There is a record of it somewhere that says so.
- The Thalmar still wage war patrols, so Mundis remains intact.
- Why no, I play entirely TOO LITTLE ES5, why do you ask?
- Oh, the lawyers for an Army Spy tried for most of 2014 to depose me in a trial.
- Surely no one would try to Subpoena a NonReal Boy.
Yeah that other thing, the Army Spy.
Long, long story. A story I am doomed to repeat, rather like Cassandra of Greek Mythology fame.
- John Jacup Towery was employed by the US Army first as enlisted, then later as Civilian.
- Most of his career John Towery worked in Commands in NATO countries, doing pretty much what he did from 2006 to 2009 in WA – infiltrate public space meetings of activists opposed to his employers aims politically or socially.
- John worked for Two main Units: JBLM DES, Directorate of Emergency Services, which is basically the On Base cops for seeking out subversion and disloyalty.
- And the second Unit was Pierce County Regional Intelligence Group 5, or RIG5.
- I found John by knowing him as an activist, and recognizing him in police sourced public records because I was actively cataloguing the participants in those conversations in police emails. His outing led to some Panic and some Meetings and Eventually some Policy Changes.
There was a lawsuit. I was involved in support for information assemblage during the suit.
The suit was dismissed and is no longer active. The site that was set up to support the suit went dark sometime this year. I didn’t administer it so I have little insight into the circumstances, but it no longer is set up on that Domain.
The RIG5 supervisor went on to other Roles, two new persons have filled that hat since then.
The JBLM/DES supervisor stayed in the same role but had their career frozen and their chain of command simplified so his chain only went through one office rather than two, each expecting the other was on it. There were three SEPARATE 15-6 investigations into this clown’s network, two in 2009 and one in 2010. I cannot share a scrap of it other than memories, it’s all destroyed at the end of the case, but I got to read payrolls stubs of who worked when, conversations about when stuff would happen, and something like 4K emails from mostly two years but parts of 6.
Towery was essentially pushed out of the Army and worked in IT for the Veterans Affairs organization, likely still using it to promote harassment of his previous targets.
In 2014 the US Army made it against Regulations to pretend to be a person other than one’s self, or hide one’s DOD affiliation, in emails or online UNLESS directed by the Secretary of Defense, US Army Chain of Command, or their designees. This happened just before Depositions in the suit.
For years, to this one in fact, other parts of the Apparatus of Repression reach out by various electronic media and have chats, never really offering or leaving any resources and always asking for time, attention, checking the link to see if the feed is still relevant to State Needs for this one’s data. So please keep in mind, that when you ask me I assume first and foremost that you ask with a jaded heart and that this is the core damage that spies do.
They erode trust.
Did I mention January / February 2011? Oh, yeah.
Anyway Tim Smith put that little piece together and got it to some public posts, My partner and I worked day and night to work out the REDACTED versions of the OSINTed fednotes posted to Cryptome. The original was on the City of Tacoma public records dump for about 4 months until it was pushed off the stack by new records. Cops use Public records to punish, to hide records “offsite” and to signal partner non-governmental entities like Vigilantes and Paramilitary formations.
Tim also got the Very Important collection known as the Homeland Security Meeting Minutes and had worked against the NWDC since before it was finished being built. Note how few minutes ACTUALLY made it into his collection. The meets had been every Thursday – dark red are referenced within the minutes in hand, so we know they existed. Or the other way around, I forget. Either way it’s swiss cheese and that’s due to nibbles and dribbles. Prime way to get screwed out of records is to fail to structure your range so that you know what DID NOT get disclosed.
The Washington State Patrol helped organize the Army Harassers with the regular War on Drugs units across the region, which double duty as Protest Response when they are not engaged in Jim Crow Two operations.
To do this they had – for many years – organized the DT conferences in Spokane WA at an old Hotel there. It was an annual junket paid for by the State and often involving a long weekend stay with the spouses before or after the business meeting days of the actual conference.
All that came crashing down when Towery got burned.
TIMELINE
But first we should review some of what the JBLM Task Force was up to within their own network: Prelude to Port Militarization Resistance, and Situation Normal for Olympia as a Base Suburb.
Pre M R / Resistance Debuts in Cheetwoot
Before there was something to infiltrate, there was an action.
In late November of 2004, frustration over the stolen Ohio elections and the re-seating of an unelected US President boiled over into an action plan to confront the fourth military ship to arrive at the Port of Olympia, the USS Intrepid. A small team of persons cut through a gate in the fence surrounding the Port of Olympia, just 90 yards from the ramp of the ship, which was lowered at the time for loading the last trucks and cargo containers the next day. The breach in the fence allowed two persons to enter the Port’s property before being arrested by police, who were quickly reinforced with more than 40 officers. The ship raised its ramp and left just one hour after the fence was breached, leaving behind several trucks and a few containers which were picked up just two weeks later by another ship. The event was taken as a lesson by some observers. Just 8 days after the fifth ship left Olympia, the Department of Homeland Security established a “security zone” in southern Budd Inlet, to raise the legal consequences of a waterborne protest against any future US Navy ships in Olympia.
An overflow public meeting of the Port Commission was held the week after the fence breaching, at the Olympia Center, and many people made arguments both for and against the use of a public port for what many were coming to realize was an illegal war against a country which had not attacked the United States. The normal meeting space for the Port Commission holds 65 persons; the Olympia Center meeting hosted over 400 persons. A short while later, the Port of Olympia staff planned to improve their marine terminal’s access by installing dockside rail directly adjacent to the ships, and made a separate plan to strengthen the Marine Terminal’s perimeter fence. The fence project would be funded in 2005 with a Homeland Security grant and completed in 2009. In December 2004 and January 2005, the US Navy spent emergency Homeland Security monies to purchase and install microwave communication gear into the Washington State Patrol’s two camera equipped Cessna airplanes, so that the video feeds from these aircraft could be relayed through the Washington State Military Department’s base at Camp Murray, just across Interstate 5 from Fort Lewis. The use of this relay system would involve State level civilian law enforcement, State military units, and US Navy and Army units in a network of intelligence sharing in real time for future military shipments in the Puget Sound region. We can only speculate that this was a reaction to the previous month’s debut of “Pre-MR,” but the timing and the use of emergency funds both speak loudly.
2004
2005
2006
Port of Olympia, May – June 2006
PMR names itself
On May 8, 2006, a reporter for the Tacoma News Tribune revealed that the US Army would move a combat brigade of Stryker vehicles out through the Port of Olympia the following week. On May 11, the US Coast Guard showed up for an exercise in Budd Inlet, adjacent to the Port of Olympia. Eleven days later on May the 22nd, convoys of Stryker Combat Vehicles began to arrive during daylight hours from Fort Lewis, parking on the lot just opposite the same fence which had been breached a year and a half prior.
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 23 2006, I crept into the Port of Olympia perimeter area and locked closed one of two gates to the Marine Terminal, but I was arrested trying to close and lock the second gate. I was taken to jail and booked on charges of felony burglary for having taken off my shoes, the better to creep into the area. Eventually I was released on my own recognizance, having worked and lived in the county since 1999. The charges were later dropped in a deferred prosecution deal (don’t get in trouble for 12 months and we’ll forget about it). I didn’t get caught doing anything in that year, and they didn’t forget my opposition to their plans.
I wasn’t the first person arrested in the campaign that began that Spring, a campaign which named itself Port Militarization Resistance later that week. I was the fourth person arrested, though I didn’t know this when I chose to take my action. Three others were arrested the day before for walking in the crosswalk in front of Stryker Combat vehicles trying to use our roads. They were cited and released from jail by City of Olympia Police after a very short time in the intake garage of the City’s jail. This became our primary tactic for the rest of the Olympia campaign: human blockades in our roads, in front of military combat vehicles, documented by video and still cameras. This was relatively easy to do in daylight conditions in downtown Olympia, which is surrounded by residential neighborhoods and is a mixed commercial / residential zone itself. The conditions in Tacoma’s port are exactly the opposite: isolated, dreary industrial landscapes miles from basic services open to the public. In addition, the military now uses these facilities primarily at night, or in daylight when they can run single vehicles out on commercial trucks separated by 30 minute delays. The military, like any other parasite, adjusts to our resistance.
On May 30, 2006, 22 persons were arrested at the front gate of the Port of Olympia, blocking the gate with their bodies (laying down with their heads toward the officers, so that there would be no confusion about being able to ‘kick’ anyone). The trial of these persons became known as the “Oly22 case.” It was the first major Port Militarization Resistance trial. During the confrontation I was broadcasting from the studios of Free Radio Olympia, 98.5 FM, a pirate radio station dedicated to direct action micro radio in opposition to the Federal Communications Commission. I was subject to a trespass order requiring that I not be on Port of Olympia property, but I was still present in spirit as my voice carried over the air from a wagon-mounted stereo at the site.
The events of May 30th were the last action during the first part of Port Militarization Resistance’s existence as a named activity. Meetings died out after a while, and the organization (as little of it as existed) faded away, like a disappearing subcommittee. It did create a listserv, though. This remained our primary way to coordinate further resistance for the next several years.
The Feeble Bureau of Intimidation
It must be tough, getting burned by a wage earning amateur…
On June 9, 2006 I spoke at a gathering of Civil Liberties activists in downtown Olympia, relating to them the history of Earth First! and IWW organizer Judi Bari and her treatment at the hands of the FBI more than a decade prior to my talk. I spoke out that day in front of the offices of the FBI in Olympia. This event was in part prompted by the December 2005 “Operation Backfire” investigations and arrests by the FBI, which sought persons in Olympia as well as other parts of Cascadia. The speech was given on a Friday. On the following Monday, June 12, 2006, I woke up and walked to my car. A large black Blackhawk helicopter flew overhead (on a regular flight path into Olympia Airport) and pulled a figure eight right above my head before returning the way it had come. “Weird,” I thought to myself. I made a note in my diary right then. Later that morning, I was driving my car to my workplace in Lacey from my home in downtown Olympia. I looked in my rear view mirror and found that I was being followed by Olympia Resident Agent Scott Saxon, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (I recognized the car). When he saw me noticing him, he took evasive action and passed me in traffic. I photographed him as I passed him in turn, and continued on to work, where I posted his picture on the web with an account of what had happened. I published this on a hyper local news site called Olyblog.net.
The Just Us System
Attorney Client Privileged Communication is a privilege – which is revoked when it works.
Meanwhile, the 2006 PMR arrestees (now known as the Oly22) began to organize for their case in court. They found out that the system which wanted to convict them of law violations was not above breaking the rules itself.
Pro Se* defendant Andrew Yankey had scheduled a deposition with Olympia Police Detective Paul Lower, who we had earlier photographed with a video camera in his hand at the Port of Olympia. The detective’s witness to the events in question (and his disposition of the tape he shot) would help a great deal in establishing what actually happened at the gate that day. Rather than allowing the witness to be deposed by the defendants, Prosecutor Debra Eurich interfered with the deposition and unilaterally rescheduled the deposition for her offices, on another day apparently more convenient to her. Pro se defendant Yankey went along with her maneuver and invited some of the attorneys and other pro se defendants to come along. * Pro Se: (a person who represents themselves in court)
When we arrived at the deposition, we were faced with a panicked Debra Eurich, the Prosecutor for the County, who closed the doors and refused to allow most of those who arrived to participate. The deposition did not happen that day at all. Eventually, the prosecutor’s office called the police – who correctly refused to arrest us for trespass. As we left the area, I observed and photographed Detective Lower’s white Chevrolet Impala in the parking lot of the prosecutor’s office.
Brendan “Maslauskas” Dunn arrived at the Prosecutor’s offices the next day, on August 31st to turn on some last minute motions in his part of the case. An office worker told him that Prosecutor Debra Eurich was not at work that day, but another prosecutor (Mike) walked up to Brendan and took the motions from him. When Brendan asked who he was, the man refused to give his name or sign for the motions. Eventually, Mike called the police on Brendan and his witness, Jeff Berryhill, who then called me and told me what was happening. The police arrived and helped Brendan get his documents stamped and accepted properly, while I filmed the events for Copwatch.
Because so many Oly PMR defendants were representing themselves in court, an email list on Riseup.net was set up in October 2006 to share information between the defendants. The US Army Force Protection Agent, John J Towery, later joined this Oly22 defendants’ listserv on February 16, 2007 using the email address ‘jaamt004@gmail.com’. The letters in the email ‘name’ later turned out to be the first initials of the members of his family, followed by the initial of their last name and the number of persons in their family. We suspect that he used this email privately as well, since it still existed to the day of this writing. We also think he should change his password more often, but we digress…
The day after the Oly22 listserv was created, three persons associated with it were arrested for being near an anarchist banner in a park in Seattle, by Seattle Police Officer Matthew Hyra. One of the three persons arrested was the originator of the listserv. The case was eventually dismissed in June of 2007, and a settlement for five figures was paid to each of the three defendants who were arrested. This case would later be cited by Pierce County RIG 5 Analyst Mike Kortjohn as “evidence” that the SDS members arrested in Seattle linked SDS as a regional organization to a “criminal nexus.” It was this criminal nexus that would “justify” much of the regional law enforcement spying against PMR and SDS for the next three years.
2007
The Just Us System
The Duty to Disobey Illegal Orders
Early in February 2007, US Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada stood court martial at Fort Lewis for refusing to deploy with his Stryker Brigade to Iraq, arguing that it was his duty to uphold the laws and Constitution and Treaties of the United States in good faith, which he could not do because the war in Iraq, then an occupation, was still illegal. Many Olympia PMR activists participated in support for Ehren Watada during this period, and some found that they had been placed on a ‘blacklist’ of persons not allowed to be on Fort Lewis. This was before any convictions in the Oly22 case. The court room used for the trial is housed in the same building (number 2007) which houses the Directorate of Emergency Services, the local police for the Base – and John Towery’s office.
In mid-February 2007, US Army Force Protection Agent and DES employee, John J Towery signed up for the Oly22 listserv, and the OlyCivLib list which had been associated with the protests against the “Green Scare / Operation Backfire” cases. He was not noticed at the time. We now know that he was seeking insight into our reaction to the upcoming movement of US Military gear through the Port of Tacoma, which was coming up in March 2007. The next day (February 17th) Towery subscribed to the Olympia PMR listserv, and applied to subscribe to the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (OMJP) listserv as well. He told the administrator of the OMJP list that:
Hi,
I am Jan I live in Parkland and go to school here. I am originally from
Oklahoma, and just moved here to go to school. I have heard of your
movement and agree with what you have to say. I do not have a car so I
can’t come to Olympia to your meetings, but I can support in spirit.
Jan
Provocations and Suspicions
How do you know who is with you, and who isn’t?
Two days after Towery was subscribed to the OlyPMR listserv, Mitchell Inclan posted an email to that list, naming the address and time and date of an upcoming meeting entitled Planning meeting for non-“non-violent” Direct Action. I was the listserv administrator of the list at the time, and I basically went off on Mitch online:
Quoting:
“Non-“non-violent” actions are violent actions – that’s what a double negative works out to be.
We don’t have an effective violent response available to us.
We don’t own anything which would overcome a Stryker vehicle violently.
If we did own any such thing, we would not discuss it in public or on a listserv.
Announcing a meeting which is likely to be watched in a medium which is likely to be watched is bad security culture.
Announcing a meeting on PMR’s listserv to discuss tactics PMR explicitly and expressly stated it did not want to engage in or endorse is bad faith organizing.
Announcing a meeting which would have consequences for the persons who live at the venue, but not for the person calling the meeting, is also bad faith with one’s friends.”
The bickering went back and forth, and only later did we realize that an email subscribed to the list at the time (jaamt004@gmail.com) was a military spy. We know this now, since the person using this email address got on our email lists before Tacoma Police believed there would be any serious possibility of protests. We also know it because it is included in some military emails we got much later in discovery.
Port of Tacoma March 2007
Deny the terrain, invade the privacy, screw the Constitution
On Friday, March 2nd at 8PM, convoys of Stryker Combat Vehicles from Fort Lewis began moving over the highways into the Port of Tacoma. PMR intelligence analysts and observers got calls from earnest persons in Tacoma claiming that the convoys were definitely coming into Olympia, and would be looping through Tacoma only to fool our Interstate 5 observers. We did check the Port of Olympia, and some Tacoma activists came down for a peek at the situation here, but no one was fooled for long by the attempted deception. Our eyes were not lying, and no one at the Port of Olympia bothered to set up a false security screen (or even turn on the lights). All the deception accomplished was a meeting of a few Tacoma SDS activists with PMR organizers in Olympia. The next day, a major regional activist summit was already scheduled for Tacoma, and that meeting became a major rallying point to bring in a lot of support that would not have otherwise been organized.
The Tacoma police later claimed they only learned on March 2nd that there would be major protests of this military shipment through Tacoma. They probably learned this because the Army was unable to convince us that night that things were happening in Olympia.
It’s hard to underestimate March, 2007 at the Port of Tacoma.
It was the first taste of victory for Olympia’s Port Militarization Resistance, the first time since 2004 that we knew the Army had used another Port rather than face us in Olympia. We didn’t know if the next shipment would come through Olympia anyway, so of course at the time we were less thrilled by victory than we were shocked by the contrast in policing styles and the physical isolation of the Port of Tacoma from life in Tacoma.
The site is truly huge, with miles of roads and a confusing layout. It’s remote from anything like a public infrastructure, or housing, or even places to pee or get a drink of water. If you go there for an event, you essentially have to pack in your water and either wear a diaper, or hold it in and cross your legs, or be ignored by the cops while you pee on a fence. They were not about to ignore us for a hot minute. The police used this fact of the terrain against us, by denying us backpacks and selectively denying us ground as we tried to situate ourselves to use our human blockades. They literally attacked us and arrested us preemptively before we ever reached a critical mass to even attempt direct action. Several people were charged with assaulting heavily armed police. One legal aid person was arrested for crossing a road, after another group had been warned before she had even arrived. The police could not be bothered to tell us apart. To them, we were all “protesters.”
The following day, when one PMR person spoke up about the abuse he had suffered from police at the port before the Tacoma City Council, he was arrested a second time “for not giving up the podium” after Tacoma Mayor Baarsma had walked out of the meeting during his short comments. Several other people had spoken longer than the PMR person had; his crime was not shutting up when he was told to shut up about David Brame. The city’s employees even shut off the live Cable feed while the thugs took the speaker away. So much for the First Amendment and all the “freedom” the Army was protecting by using the Port of Tacoma…
At the end of the protests and attempted direct actions in Tacoma, there had been remarkable success in getting videos of police violence and crowd control measures out to a website called Youtube.com, thanks to a videographer and University of Puget Sound student known as “acumensch” on Youtube. The videos did a good job of getting around the slanted commercial TeeVee and Newspaper coverage of the police side of the events, and directly contributed to nationwide interest in the PMR movement as a tactic which could be applied elsewhere in almost any community near a major combat base. He was later targeted and arrested by Tacoma Police, at the second Port of Tacoma PMR actions in August of 2008. The police also adapt to our successful tactics.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Acumensch#p/u/49/IfhUaUuG1sM
http://www.youtube.com/user/Acumensch#p/u/48/9hIIuJK_Uh8
http://www.youtube.com/user/Acumensch#p/u/45/z-w7g_8ZCYU
http://www.youtube.com/user/Acumensch#p/u/41/xyYDYVosjYE
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theunabonger/2046719678/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMDW4Fszj2U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWmLufB6Bsw
http://www.youtube.com/user/Acumensch#p/u/39/1DQ25SjJ3i4
A spy is revealed
But not his name (yet)
It was shortly after the first March 2007 Tacoma PMR actions that the attorney-client Oly22 list was sent a spreadsheet of all the persons on the prospective Jury Pool for that trial. This is normal procedure for attorneys and pro se defendants (persons who represent themselves in court) in a Jury trial, where preparation for Jury selection is coordinated with many people at once. What made this email distribution problematic was that several ex-defendants and some attorney’s investigators were also on the email list, and they were arguably not allowed to see the jury pool list. An email was sent out shortly afterward, advising several people in the non-defendant, non-pro se categories to ignore and delete the email unread. But US Army spy John Towery was also on the email list at that time, and he likely saw the emails and saved them for later use at trial. This would only come to light a week later, during the trial itself. It was not brought to the court’s attention directly by John Towery, who wanted to infiltrate the group in person and still needed to cover his participation in spying on us, so he passed on the information to Thurston County Deputy Michael Hirte, who established his own account on the (suddenly) unsecured Oly22 email list, which was hosted at Riseup.net. Hirte then approached the Court in open session and revealed the leak of the list to the Judge, who declared a mistrial in the case. The case was not heard again, and none of the persons involved in the mistrial in March 2007 were ever convicted of anything regarding the May 2006 protests. Some others had already accepted plea deals.
Documents received later from the City of Tacoma revealed that John J Towery signed a confidential source agreement with Pierce County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Chris Adamson on March 19, 2007. For the next several years, this document would “excuse” Towery’s infiltration of Olympia and Tacoma activist circles despite his US Army employment. http://cryptome.org/0003/towery-spy1.zip (this copy was redacted by the victims of this release – see pages 8 – 11)
In an ironic twist it turned out that Christopher Adamson was himself a member of the US Air Force Reserve / Air National Guard. A Federal law called Posse Comitatus written in the post-Reconstruction era after the Civil War makes it a Federal Misdemeanor to use the military in law enforcement in the United States. This law exempts the US Coast Guard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Christopher D Adamson was the head of the Regional Intelligence Group 5, a division of the Washington State Fusion Center’s effort to better share anti terrorism intelligence among local and Federal Law enforcement agencies.
The locals fight for the higher pie
If we do the work, why do they get the pay?
On March 16, 2007 the Thurston County Sheriff, Dan Kimball, wrote a letter to the Port of Olympia in which he declined any further security details with the Port in any future military shipments. He noted that their office had already spent $31,000 on officers needed to extend mutual aid to Tacoma PD during the early part of March 2007, and that the Port of Olympia had not written anything into their contract with the Sheriff’s office to cover such extra costs in the future. They also noted that they expected significant post-event impacts in time spent on attending numerous court hearings, and expected civil litigation against the department for actions they would likely take in suppressing crowds at the protests. They faxed a copy of this letter to the Aberdeen Police in August, 2007. This would result in the Port of Olympia hiring mercenary security forces in November, 2007.
Aberdeen, Washington May 2007
PMR exports the struggle to the hometown of Kurt Cobain
In late April and early May 2007, the US Army shipped the 4-6 Air Cavalry, a helicopter battlefield surveillance unit, from Fort Lewis to the war in Iraq via the port of Grays Harbor in Aberdeen, Washington. People opposed to the war in Aberdeen noticed the large flights of helicopters landing at their Port and called some PMR organizers, whose phone numbers had been published in press releases during the previous two actions. Two of PMR-INFO’s observers (Intelligence Network For Observers) went out to survey the situation and found that uniformed Aberdeen Police in an unmarked truck followed them through seven turns on the way out of the City. I was one of those observers, and I made a snap decision to pull over before we were confronted with a uniformed patrol officer in a marked car. As I exited my van and approached the two officers in their dark green civilian truck, I demanded a reason why they were stalking us. They claimed to be worried that I was “lost.” I informed them that they had not pulled me over to inquire, but I had pulled over to challenge their behavior, which was a crime called stalking. They changed their story, claiming that they were only pulling over behind us to perform a walking patrol and they had not been following us out of town after all.
After they identified themselves to me by name (Lt Slyter and Sergeant Wagonblast), I told the two officers that they should not let us hold them back from their walking patrol. They reluctantly stepped out of their vehicle and walked down the sidewalk. We let them get a half block away from our van before we got back in and left the area. On the way out of town, we noticed a maze set up, with construction signs diverting the main highway out of town into a confusion of twists and turns through a Wal Mart parking lot next to the highway. It was probably not possible to negotiate the obstacle course without making a speed or direction mistake and thus triggering a traffic stop. Now we knew how the Aberdeen Police intended to handle protesters in their small town. This was later confirmed through an analysis of police reports of traffic stops in that area.
Strange Alliance
The Aberdeen Cops Send the US Military packing
The Aberdeen Police later wrote that their first notice of the upcoming military shipments occurred on April 11, 2007 – about two weeks before the shipments. That same report noted that the City of Tacoma had, the month before, deployed more than 200 officers to control the PMR demonstrators while still requiring mutual aid from 31 separate departments outside Tacoma. The report also notes that Grays Harbor County didn’t even have 200 officers in all its police and sheriffs departments put together. It was apparently clear to Aberdeen police that suppression of any and all protest was their only hope of controlling the situation. This was reflected in their extremely aggressive anti-First Amendment behavior. (Lt Slyter would later threaten to shut down a music venue due to the possibility that PMR organizers might speak there, making their silence an explicit condition for his inaction. Lt Slyter was in charge of the entire evening operations shift of the Aberdeen PD)
The Aberdeen Police after-action report noted in conclusion that “Constant shadowing of subjects that were identified as potential troublemakers prevented them from doing things…” This included sending three Grays Harbor County detectives into Olympia on May 2nd to shadow PMR activists who had been arrested at Tacoma the month before. They followed a person who had been arrested at Tacoma from his home, to the university he attended, and then to a park, where they noticed another person who was an assistant to some of our legal counsel, and had also been arrested at Tacoma as she crossed a road to ask a question of a police officer. They named both persons in their report of the surveillance, apparently from access to their license plate or booking photo information. We later found out this was due to Pierce County Regional Intelligence Group Analyst Mike Kortjohn’s 5-page “Dossier” of PMR Tacoma arrests, which he passed around each time a new military shipment was happening over the next two years. This dossier has booking photos of each person, their dates of birth, physical description, address, FBI number, State of Washington Number, charges, and political affiliations. It was published by the City of Tacoma in early 2011 and again by Pierce County in August 2011 in several public records releases. http://cryptome.org/0003/towery-spy1.zip (this copy was redacted by the victims of this release – see pages 13-17)
Photographs taken by Aberdeen Police were later acquired through Open Records Act requests, and they show us that John Towery, US Army Directorate of Emergency Services employee and Force Protection agent, was present at those demonstrations in Aberdeen as a supposed protester. In the police photographs, John wears his US Army red beret, dark sunglasses, and a neck kerchief which could be pulled up to form a quick mask. He isn’t shown in any of the pictures associating with anyone in particular, and he isn’t remembered by anyone in the PMR-INFO activity as approaching us at that time. But others in the PMR action groups do remember him from May 2007.
PMR activist Phan Nguyen remembers that John approached Phan during the early planning of the Aberdeen protests, by running up to Phan near the advertised meet-up point for carpools to Aberdeen, which we now know was under surveillance by Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Detectives from their narcotics detail. Phan writes that John Towery ran up to him and called him by name, asking where the PMR meeting was. It was probably held at Media Island International or at the Free School that evening, and Phan remembers John attending because John gave Phan a ride in his blue truck (a Pontiac Aztek).
In documents released by the Aberdeen Police, John Towery is mentioned in police emails and meeting minutes as a participant in the planning of security for the event, so we know now that police were aware of his role at the time they were photographing him at the demonstrations. His business card is reproduced as one of five placed onto a photo copier’s platen for the reference of the Aberdeen Police, and one other of the five business cards is redacted entirely. This secret card, confidential sources tell us, belonged to Clinton Donald Colvin of the United States Coast Guard, Investigative Service. Other documents released by the Aberdeen Police show us that the US Coast Guard was briefing local police and sheriff’s deputies and the US Army personnel on how to infiltrate our protests for security and observation during the events. This indicates that they had prior experience doing this in our case, or in other local cases some of which are already known to us. http://www.flickr.com/photos/29801588@N08/4485939474/in/photostream/
On May Day, 2007, Captain John Green of the Aberdeen Police Department escorted two journalists from the City’s daily newspaper on a tour inside the secured perimeter at the Port Of Grays Harbor. The photographs they published on the newspaper’s website confirmed for PMR-INFO the identity of the Army unit being shipped through the Port and told us that it was, indeed, a combat and not an indirect support unit. (Our standard for advising activists of ongoing or upcoming military convoys has always been that the units be combat vehicles, and not benign appearing trucks.) Much later on, we found that the same paper had already published the name of the unit being shipped when the first few pieces of equipment had arrived, before the helicopter flights which had alerted us.
Captain John Green’s actions caused a shit-storm between the Aberdeen Police and the US Army commander who oversaw the transport operations for the military. Within an hour and a half, he and his Chief of Police and Deputy Chief were before the Commander of the US Army’s unit moving the equipment, the 833rdTransportation Battalion. The Aberdeen Chief of Police wrote later:
“I felt that we were ‘being put in our place’ in her eyes because of an incident that was apparent to me she did not have the correct facts about.”
No word on whether the chief was ever prosecuted for his murder of written English.
After their tongue lashing, the Aberdeen police department was banned from the interior of the secured portion of the Port within the hour, and for the rest of the operation. They remained in a security role outside the boundary, however.
The week before, on April 24th, The Aberdeen Police had warned the US Army’s 833rdTransportation Battalion that they could not expect the Aberdeen Police to handle something as large as what had happened in Tacoma or Olympia. Now one of their Captains had deliberately brought the media into a secured area they were supposed to be limiting access to, raising the question of why APD would do this. One answer is that they might have intended it to be the last time this unfunded mandate was dumped on their small town by the US Army.
Although the Aberdeen police were apparently no longer trusted by the US 833rdTransportation Battalion, they remained in contact with Fort Lewis’ Directorate of Emergency Services, the unit Thomas Rudd was attached to. Tom Rudd is John Towery’s boss. Tom and his people were invited to the after action debriefs two weeks after the shipment, and were still in touch with Aberdeen police about consequence management weeks, even years, later. They had been in close contact since April 20, 2007; Adolph Hitler’s birthday came on a Friday that year.
Washington State Patrol
Policing Political Associations for the DOD
The Washington State Patrol also took part in the security operations at the Port of Grays Harbor and on the roads which led to it. One of the shared pieces of “intelligence” broadcast among the police during the Sunday, May 6thbriefings claimed that 5 or 6 people from Eugene, Oregon were coming to the Port to join the protest, along with up to 50 anarchists from Olympia. This became a rumor about “a bus load of anarchists from Eugene,” and resulted in the targeted traffic stop and false DUI arrest of a man from Olympia who was on his way to the protest with a few passengers, including one documentary camera person. When the WSP released the man, they arranged for Aberdeen undercover officers to follow the car into Aberdeen and around the town until they left. The group never reached the protest they were heading to until after it was over, and remained under police surveillance the entire time they remained in Aberdeen. Two of the persons who were followed that day later got us the photos of US Army spy John Towery which helped us publish his identity to the world.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-06-09/news/watching-the-protesters/
WSP troopers later recommended the man they had held for “driving while anarchist” for prosecution for DUI, despite two inconclusive breath tests at the scene, and a negative blood test at the station in Montesano. The prosecutor declined to prosecute the man, who successfully sued the WSP and Aberdeen police department for illegally targeting him due to his political affiliations. One of the pictures the man saw in the patrol car which transported him was of another car, at his address. He knew as he was being arrested that it was a sham. (The driver, Phil Chinn, eventually won a settlement for $168,000 from three agencies involved in his surveillance and arrest, and his attorneys won another $249,000 in fees and costs.) http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/06/anti-war_protester_philip_chin.php
On August 22, 2007 PMR-INFO revealed itself publicly for the first time at a meeting of Port Militarization Resistance. The roles of the three activities within PMR-INFO were outlined in a small document, which served as a briefing and recruitment tool for PMR-INFO until August 2009. PMR-INFO had actually begun in the summer of 2004, when first saw shipments through the Port. We didn’t have a formal name and simply referred to our activity as “The Watch.” Less than a month after this initial 2007 disclosure of PMR-INFO’s existence to the outside world, Fort Lewis Force Protection agent John J Towery made his first approach to me by email. He did this on September 12, the day before the first US Coast Guard and 833rdTransportation Battalion meetings with the Olympia Police Department. He was getting ready for the November 2007 military in-load through the Port of Olympia, which in turn would be the last such use of the Port of Olympia for at least the next four years.
November 2007 Port of Olympia
PMR chases the Army out of Olympia
The signs that we were being targeted by police during that summer were obvious, but we were hazy then on what the cycles meant. We now know that surveillance and harassment come in waves tuned to when the Army and Police are expecting trouble, regardless of whether we know we’re going to be causing any trouble. If there is trouble which we might cause, we suddenly see an up-tick in “weird shit.” We now call this the “Weird shit meter” and regularly use it to measure whether we need to make observations to confirm action in the area. When someone steps into your life suddenly, becomes super interested in your resistance work, and disappears the day after actions conclude, this is an example of “weird.” But it’s just one example. Weird is a very wide pool of strange circumstances.
On October 22, 2007 I was downtown in Olympia at Heritage Park, when a man walked up to the Copwatch training I was conducting and snapped a photo, and walked away. This turned out to be the same day the US Coast Guard and US Army met Olympia Police representatives to coordinate security for the upcoming military shipment at Olympia. This photographer made our “Weird shit meter” immediately.
One of the benefits of having progressive allies in local government is the ability of that ally to tip you to upcoming situations in the city. This was true in this case, when City Council member T J Johnson posted a hint that upcoming PMR actions would not be at Tacoma, but rather closer to home. TJ had been the City Council member who called the USS Olympia question and spearheaded the hearing on that issue, back in 2004. He was in the last years of his term, and had little to lose by revealing the upcoming shipment, but he did tip the community first. He was also someone who had been arrested at PMR actions in Tacoma.
On October 29thand 30th, we now know that the Port of Olympia was in phone contact with the 833rdTransportation Battalions’ Marine Terminal Coordinator, Phil Fantozzi and their new commander, Lt Commander Mike Balser. We know this because in the aftermath of the events, we can obtain cellular telephone records for the Port through Open Records Act requests (or dumpster diving). This allows us to document with some accuracy just who was coordinating with whom, and when. That, in turn, tells us whom to notice when they show up for a meeting.
Meanwhile, at the house I used as an office and residence at the time (Media Island), we noticed a man with a thick European accent had “moved into” the house, which is loosely disciplined. The traveler stayed at the Island for about two weeks prior to the shipment, and was last seen on his bicycle heading into the Port’s Marine Terminal at about 5:30 AM at the end of the first week of protests. I only saw him once after that, and took his picture. At the time, he gave many around him a vague, uncomfortable feeling. We now know that we must each learn to live with our instincts, which often tell us the right information, even though they can’t explain it very well. You really only have to work with just a few people in order to be effective, and you must trust them freely, or not at all. If anyone demands your trust, that is a red flag you should NOT ignore.
On Monday, November 5 2007, the USNS Brittin stopped to refuel at the Naval station in Everett, which it turns out is usual after a Pacific crossing. The next day, it began unloading the 3/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s equipment in the Port of Olympia.
Convoy operations ran from 8PM until 3AM the following night to ferry the Stryker trucks which could drive out under their own power. The tanks and other equipment would later move out by train.
US Army DES/Force Protection Director Tom Rudd was emailing “Force Protection Updates” to the OPD beginning November 5thand continuing until the in-load was complete.
During the first night’s convoys out of the Port of Olympia, PMR blockaders put themselves into the road without lock down devices or chains. They were (for the most part) not arrested, but beaten with clubs, shoved, pepper sprayed, and pushed out of the road each time they obstructed it. The police were trying their best to increase the discomfort, but deny the arrests, which they saw would garner media attention and regional support. They also operated at night to avoid clear photographic documentation of their tactics.
The Friday night after the ship’s arrival, there was a lull in the shipment operations and a corresponding hole in the police coverage provided. At about 4 o’clock in the evening, a small group of PMR blockaders got in front of a truck carrying a Stryker vehicle out of the port on its flatbed trailer, and managed to force the truck and its cargo to withdraw back into the port. The shipments ended for that day after our blockades. Police responding to the scene noticed that one mother had two of her children with her on foot, and one breastfeeding in her arms. They decided not to use chemical spray for fear of harming the children. Later they would establish a ‘policy’ that they would remove the children from parental custody and prosecute the parents for child endangerment if they encountered children at demonstrations again. Their rationale for this was the danger the Police posed to the children. In any abusive relationship, it is always the “victim’s fault” that the abuser has to use force.
For the night of Friday, November 9th2007, until 8AM the next Morning, PMR held the front gates of the port of Olympia and successfully stopped the return of the military equipment to its base. Meanwhile, the police were laying plans to retake the Port.
Early on Saturday morning, Port of Olympia employees and Olympia Police coordinated by phone a two part attack on PMR blockades at the rear and front entrances to the Port of Olympia. The police stepped in to use tear gas, pepper spray paint balls, and batons to shove the blockaders out of the road, avoiding arrests in the morning attacks. The Port of Olympia workers would sweep the roads of the debris and obstacles placed there by the PMR blockaders and their allies. These were daylight raids, however, and the police were well documented doing what they did. Two federal civil rights lawsuits resulted from this action but failed in the Tacoma Federal Court under the same judge Bryan who has fixed every such case I have ever tracked in our district. The videos and photos, however, made the story a nationwide news event for the next week.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20140593@N03/1969662977/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamsjung/1960860961/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwhitlock/1955218703/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7590322@N06/2123656359/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8109481@N08/sets/72157603121656526/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimgreenphotos/5840375282/
Later on that same Saturday, the 10thof November, PMR blockaders did manage to lock down with some devices at the I-5 entrance from Olympia. They maintained a blockade for about an hour as police had to saw, and arrest, every single one. About half of these persons were later prosecuted, but the cases fell through and only the ones which plead out were ever resolved in the government’s favor. Before they sawed the blockaders apart, the police shot them with pepper balls from a “paint ball gun.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/19914179@N05/1957166883/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/murrays80136/5365901546/
The rest of the weekend was quiet, with Monday being Veterans’ Day, and the Port of Olympia being off for the holiday. Tuesday, November 13thturned out to be the biggest confrontation so far, and also saw the largest number of arrests. The evening began when a large number of women coordinated as a group to blockade the Franklin Street gate to the Port of Olympia, using nothing but their bodies, in solidarity with the women of Iraq. They sat in the road in two long lines across, chanting “We are Nonviolent. No force is necessary.” They and their supporters also sang a cadence, “Ain’t no Power like the power of the sisters, ’cause the power of the sisters don’t stop.” They held the gate road for at least two hours.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deaddrift/2020942609/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20908259@N05/2036365422/in/photostream
A small crew of men and women stood between the 40 women who sat in the road, and the pro-war protesters who shouted threats and insults at all of us, generally behaving like fools. The Olympia Police, before 200 witnesses and news cameras, were forced to ‘soft arrest’ 44 persons, all but a handful of them women, rather than resort to the pain and push technique they had been using for the prior week. This process of gently arresting each participant in turn continued for more than an hour, as each person was put onto a city bus and eventually held on the Port for another hour before being booked and released. Then, almost at the end of the arrests, a convoy of Stryker vehicles came out of the back gate and parallel to the road where the blockade arrests were being made. Many of the witnesses rushed to fill the path of the convoy, successfully blocking it twice before Olympia Police deployed chemical and shock munitions to disperse them. The police made no arrests for violence that night, but claimed later that several people threw rocks at their vehicles and damaged them as they chased the convoys through the streets of downtown Olympia. For an hour or more, bands of angry protesters roamed downtown Olympia, attracting some attention but making no real trouble for the police, who simply chased them around downtown in turn. The stryker convoys used the opportunity to complete their move to Fort Lewis.
TJ Johnson later arranged a meeting at the City of Olympia Council chambers to take public witness of the various acts of police brutality and suppression we had experienced. This public hearing never indicted anyone, but it attracted a packed audience and it was videotaped for Tee Vee news and later history. The information from it never really went anywhere, once the federal civil rights lawsuits were dismissed in 2010. Several photos of the event show US Army spy John Towery attended in black block outfit, standing directly behind the Tee Vee cameras against the wall.
Due to the police repression we were noticing, we decided that on November 17thwe would hold a rally at the port of Olympia Plaza, and march in the streets of Olympia focusing on messages about the police violence we had been subjected to. The photograph of this march would later become the front banner of the Olympia PMR web page, until that page was disabled in 2009. A small group of people countered our protest of the police violence, from an “Astro-Turf” group called “Operation Support Our Troops.” OSOT is commonly seen in Olympia in the person of Tumwater resident Jeff Brigham, an employee of South Puget Sound Community College. Jeff is notorious for holding a ‘protest’ sign which says “Thank God for Israeli Bulldozers.” Rachel Corrie, a native of Olympia, was run over and killed by the bulldozer for which Jeff’s sign thanks his creator. At the rally, Kyle Taylor Lucas spoke from the dais for PMR as a woman of color, a woman of a local native tribe, who stood in solidarity with us. Then we joined hands and held a circle of unity with our supporters, at the same time clearly leaving out the handful who came not to support the law, or us, but rather prayed for our deaths.
Sometime during the week after November 13th, we knew that the US Army would ship out several M1A2 battle tanks and assorted equipment not directly part of the 3/2 Stryker unit, from the Port of Olympia to Texas and Alabama by rail. The equipment had come in by ship with the 3/2 SBCT, but was destined for “reset” at General Dynamics Land Systems facilities elsewhere. To delay this, someone apparently poured cement onto the train tracks leading out of the Port of Olympia. Police documents show that the action took place at the corner of 7thand Jefferson, and we are pretty sure the action was not seriously a danger to the trains, which would easily crush the unreinforced cement on the rails. But security concerns prevented the movement of that train out of the Port by at least 11 days. A lot of activity was noted at the time as crews surveyed the tracks.
We know that the delay was at least 11 days, because we have obtained the Port of Olympia contract with mercenary security firm Security Services Northwest for November 5ththrough November 17th. This same firm would still be securing the Port of Olympia on November 28th, when the train finally did move out of the Port and toward the mainline south of Olympia. Simple math provides the number of days the shipment was delayed beyond what the Port originally expected.
That delay turned out the be the longest delay arguably due to a PMR action, to date – though the security firm also had a monetary motive of which we were unaware at the time. To this date, no group has taken public responsibility for the sabotage of the rails. FBI agents questioned local suppliers of quick mix cement during the next week after the sabotage, so credit is unlikely to be reliably established, short of prosecution. If no one involved with the action speaks or brags about the events later on, this seems unlikely to happen.
Immediately before or just after the November actions, I met US Army spy John Towery for the first time. He had approached me by email in September 2007, but did not meet with me until later, and it is unclear to me now whether he had any part in PMR-INFO during the November 2007 Olympia actions. (I simply do not remember him having a role within our intelligence function during that event.)
Immediately following the events in November, PMR meetings were well attended and it is likely during this time that I first was approached physically by John Towery. He and I went to his car to speak after one meeting (at Media Island), and I remember being wary enough of him that I told him I would not accept any classified or secret information from him. I basically thought he must be FBI at that point, and expected him to try to get me to do some felony with him so I could be arrested. He did not, and my suspicions were lulled in part by that.
On December 20, 2007, Walter “Wally” Cuddeford, a young man who had worked with me in PMR-INFO and who had had a falling out with me in the Spring of 2007, published his 28,000 word manifesto, “Drew Hendricks is Pro Oppression” on Livejournal, Olyblog.net, Seattle Indymedia, and on the Olympia PMR email list. At the end of the document, he published my address (a bus I sometimes slept on at a house on the East Side) with the prayer that our community kick me out of the region, directly if they felt able. Then he went into hiding at his friend’s apartment in Lacey. (He was very specific about the fact that he would be going into hiding)
Walter and I were, and remained until July 2011, co-workers at the same small repair shop in Lacey. To this day, our friendship has not resumed and we remain somewhat formal with each other when we’re not simply silent. The day after the manifesto was published, I was scheduled to leave town for two weeks during Christmas Break, which I did. It was a depressing, distressful holiday. While I was out of town, I apologized to Walter on the OlyPMR email list, in order to quench the raging infighting emails shooting back and forth. He never directly acknowledged my apology, though he did refer to it later when others were taking him to task for what he had done to me. He used it as an argument that he was right to do what he did.
How the divisions among us are exploited
We often do their work for them.
When Walter published his manifesto, I had been the only administrator for the Olympia PMR email list, so I had to immediately open that role up to several other people in order for accountability to be maintained. I could not (as an interested party in a major dispute) be the only person able to delete posts or set list members’ privileges, so I invited volunteers to step forward. Four persons volunteered; John Towery, Robert Whitlock, Noah Sochet, and Kyle Taylor Lucas, who was also known as Carol Ann Boysen. Of these four, I vetoed Robert “Berd” Whitlock and allowed the other three. Two of them turned out to be working against Olympia PMR, though I did not know this at that time.
I especially was happy that “Tacoma John” was part of the team, since having eyes in Tacoma meant a lot and we needed regional representatives, not just Olympia’s “professional activists.”
2008
On February 14, 2008 there was a “Dead Presidents” show at the Evergreen State College. During the concert, TESC police officer April Meyers took a black man into custody, on allegations that he was fighting. A group of volunteer ‘security’ persons for the event had started a fistfight, trying to remove a joint someone was smoking, and the man Officer Meyers arrested was trying to stop that fight when he ran afoul of one of the ‘security’ volunteers. The volunteer later pointed him out to police, who then sparked an uprising by arresting a black man at a politically conscious, radical anti-authoritarian rap concert. The uprising was nonviolent, but did surround the car Officer Meyers had placed her prisoner into. She and the Thurston County deputies who arrived to assist her were forced to release the man on his own recognizance at the scene.
Shortly afterward, Olympia Police Officers arrived to try to get the initiative back, using their pepper spray and batons just as they had during the November 2007 PMR protests the year before. This did not work, and it instead severely escalated the situation beyond police control. Officers later wrote that they felt they had to run for their lives, and that the crowd was throwing sticks, manhole covers and trash can lids at them as they ran away. A Thurston County Sheriffs Deputy had to leave her patrol vehicle, which would not start soon enough to escape the crowd. The car was flipped, stripped, and destroyed. The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office reported that a laptop worth almost $5,000 was looted from the vehicle and never recovered. Rumor had it that the device was almost immediately broken and buried, or else placed into water, which would be consistent with procedures used when one has a device known to be equipped with GPS that the police would certainly have used to recover it. The data from the laptop, though, apparently made it into the wild and was found on a website some time later and saved for more analysis.
The “Valentines Day Uprising” created a crisis for the Evergreen State College, which is a State of Washington institution and is run by a board of trustees appointed by the Governor. Some TESC students had been named in police circles as being the prime organizers of Olympia PMR, Students for a Democratic Society, and the ever elusive “anarchist” scene in Olympia (also known as the Olympia Chapter of the Eugene Anarchists). The administration of the College had to reassert control, and this tended to be done in the best way that the College was equipped to do: Bring speakers to town, and set the terms of acceptable discussion for the community. As they were setting up their usual program, history laughed again at all of us, and plowed onward toward May Day 2008.
On February 23, 2008 Ryan Hirotaka and OPD Patrol Officer Michael O’Neill were confronted in the yard of Casa de Nada, a house in Olympia. The residents had noticed a flash of light near a blue bus which I had used as a bedroom for several months in 2007. The official explanation of this intrusion was a ‘911 hang up call’ from the phone at the house, but the officers did not walk up to the front door of the house or contact the phone number when they arrived, and instead apparently took photographs at the blue bus. They only made contact when they were confronted. It is likely that they were using Walter’s “tip” about my residence to try to recover the missing laptop computer. It would have made sense to hand it off to a Copwatch organizer.
On February 25, I was notified by people who lived at “HQ” on 4thAve in downtown Olympia that they were experiencing heavy and obvious police surveillance as well. HQ was a house of several prominent TESC SDS organizers.
In the early morning hours of February 26, OPD Michael O’Neill parked his car adjacent to me on the street, and threw open his door as if he were going to jump out and chase me. I was standing near the door to Done and Done, on Franklin Street in downtown Olympia. I didn’t take the bait – in part because I knew that running was probable cause for an arrest. He got back into his car without even placing his other foot on the ground, made a comment to me about how I was “scaring him” and drove off. An hour later I spotted him waiting in a parking lot watching my usual path back to Media Island International, on Adams street in downtown Olympia.
On February 26, 2008, TESC got served with a sealed subpoena for records on thirteen of its students. The Sheriffs Office was investigating these people from the analysis of video tapes and pictures taken at the uprising. The subpoena was placed under seal for 90 days, and TESC fully cooperated with police. Many of these folks were later convicted and ended up paying the County some $45,000 in restitution.
On Sunday, March 2ndJeff Brigham, a leading member of the “Astro-Turf” pro-war demonstrators known as “Operation Support Our Troops” – attended a PMR meeting at the Free School space on Columbia Street. As a result of his being there, PMR would later adopt a formal method of closing down, and deciding whom was welcome at its formerly open meetings. It later turned out that Brigham had been required by “Bert” Whitlock (Robert Friend Webber Whitlock) to report on some public meeting for continued access to Olyblog.net, a hyperlocal news site which had been active since 2005. “Bert” – who later changed his nickname once again to “Berd” – had become a ‘docent’ at Olyblog and was responsible for deciding what to do with discipline on that web site. His assignment of Jeff Brigham to a PMR meeting was discovered only later, on Olyblog discussion threads and was not known to us at the time, even through Berd / Bert was present at the meeting and actively campaigned via email to come up with the new closed PMR meeting policy.
March 3, 2008 was the day I received a few audio tapes of May 2007 Washington State Patrol dispatch recordings, revealing to us for the first time that Phil Chinn had been targeted for political reasons and we had the proof of this in the words of the officers who did it. He would later be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in part because we had this proof in our hands.
On March 7, 2008 a Students for a Democratic Society at TESC tried to hold a concert benefit and speaking event to benefit the San Francisco Eight, who were Black Panther Party affiliated men who had been tortured in the early 1970’s. The concert part of the event violated a “concert ban” which TESC had declared in the wake of the uprising. Student Affairs decided to attempt a prior restraint on the free speech of its student body rather than bend on the rules. The event went well, but with a heavy cop watcher presence to document attempts by TESC cops to figure out how to turn off the power to the room. The police decided not to attack. The next week, TESC Student Affairs suspends the group status of SDS on campus.
A regional PMR meeting was set for March 29thin Tacoma, but a venue had not yet been found by the person who had accepted that task: John J Towery, of the US Army. On February 22 he sniped at another PMR organizer online, trying to start an argument about it when she suggested he wasn’t being serious when he took the task.
That organizer did have to set up the meeting venue herself, which ended up being at a private persons’ house in Tacoma. The Tacoma police ( Tacoma PD – B9131C ) followed Noah Sochet away from that meeting as he drove his car (he left before the rest of us), and this was relayed to us by Kyle Taylor Lucas – who was on the phone with him as it happened. John Towery attended the meeting as well.
On April 4th2008, a small Cessna aircraft orbited my place of work at 1314 Lebanon Street in Lacey, WA. Both Wally Cuddeford and I saw the aircraft circle the house for 20 minutes or more. Later that day I was told that the WA National Guard unit heading for Iraq was in convoy on Interstate 5. It would not be the last time I noticed this behavior, either.
The ‘Community Conversations’
about us, without us.
In the wake of the Feb 14thuprising, TESC Vice President for Diversity Paul Gallegos became the architect of a series of “community conversations” centered around the issue of the Port Militarization Resistance and associated civil disorder. But as he was just beginning to set up the terms of a late Spring or early Summer series of discussions, a breakaway march from May Day’s 2008 celebration in Olympia turned into a rock throwing, glass breaking ‘anarchist’ riot and several people, TESC students among them, were arrested by Olympia Police. Two of the police present that day just happened to be detectives hanging out inside a bank downtown when the windows were smashed in…
On May 2nd, and for the next few days, TESC and the City of Olympia hosted the planned arrival and speaking tour of Reverend James M Lawson, whose 1950’s Civil Rights career included experience working with Dr Martin Luther King himself, and studying in India with people who had known Ghandi. Reverend Lawson, of course, was sponsored by these governmental units to intone the party line at several public speaking engagements over the next few days: ‘violence is always bad, only nonviolent protest is legitimate.’
Governments love to confuse pacifism with nonviolent resistance, as if pleading with the slaveholders had been all it took to win the Civil War, and as if century later, the Civil Rights Movement for voting and education rights merely walked in circles with signs in their hands. A whole industry has sprung up, aimed at obfuscating the history of civil resistance using nonviolent direct action – re-framing the issue as if the debate is really ‘violence versus nonviolence,’ to split the left on a false dichotomy. This country runs on violence. Failure to challenge this systemic violence is complicity in that institutional violence. Both Dr King and Gandhi were clear on that point.
Reverend Lawson was not sponsored to discuss (or even acknowledge) the State of Washington’s own National Guard Unit, the 81stBrigade Heavy Combat Team, then preparing for deployment to Iraq, or the State of Washington’s police departments or Sheriff’s Offices and their role in violence against us, much less to denounce the violence unleashed by the Stryker brigades we were trying to stop, or point out that we were actually enforcing international law when the police illegally interfered with us.
From the start of the project to host their ‘community conversations’ TESC and their allies in the City of Olympia City Managers’ office realized that they would need to invite PMR to the table. They approached community groups from a practical perspective, based on their own long histories as community organizers and winners of political campaigns. Who did they know who could reliably represent the factions they wanted to apparently ‘bring together,’ and who would still being tame enough to sit obediently and let the masters set the terms of debate? They eventually reached four PMR participants to take part in their talks; former Olympia City Council member TJ Johnson, TESC Professor Larry Mosqueda, PMR Nov 13tharrestee and Stonewall Youth director, Emily Pieper, and Robert “Bert / Berd” Whitlock, a local photographer and blogger who was at several of the actions in November 2007 and earlier in 2006. Professor Larry Mosqueda only participated in one of the ‘community conversation’ sessions, sitting out the other two entirely and not attending the final plenary session in February 2009. His comment on their process? That it was “bullshit.” None of these PMR participants had been aware that PMR had earlier rejected participation in the ‘community conversations’ during meetings to discuss the original invitation to the talks. I obtained the complete list of the eventual participants by making an open records act request to the Olympia Police Department, which had a complete list even though they had not helped to organize the talks. It is not known to whom this list was later distributed.
Months before they had eventually found their hand-picked PMR ‘responsible activists’ TESC and the City of Olympia had already approached PMR organizers directly, carrying on several negotiating sessions with two PMR participants who had volunteered informally, outside of PMR meetings or process. Kyle Taylor Lucas and Peter Cooper sat in on our behalf at the discussions facilitated by the Dispute Resolution Center, which was hired by TESC and the City to structure the ‘community conversation’ and provide facilitators for the talks. The negotiations sought agreement of the participants on the structure, which it turned out the Dispute Resolution Center wanted to use to limit who could represent PMR.
Rewards from the Powerful
To each, the fruits of their labors.
On June 10, 2008 the Olympia City Council voted $50,000 as a budget supplemental, to pay for the prosecution of PMR participants arrested in November of 2007.
The next day, the Port of Olympia was reportedly paid $70,000 by the DOD for its expenses in the November 2007 actions.
On June 13, 2008 TESC and SDS students negotiated an end to a sit-in occupation of the Student Affairs offices which had been sparked by the suspension of SDS as a recognized TESC student group. The suspension was retaliation for holding a concert and speech in support of the San Francisco 8 on March 7th2008.
Throughout June of 2008, various participants in the PMR actions in November 2007 found out whether they would be prosecuted by the City of Olympia. Many persons who were associated with Students for a Democratic Society were singled out during this time, and one (Shyam Khanna) was arrested for suspicion of actions on May Day just after he was arraigned on charges he received for the PMR actions of November 2007. He would eventually be convicted. Many college students found out that summer that the Evergreen State College administration was helping Law Enforcement by giving them access to the database of student ID photos, and several intercepted pieces of Olympia Detectives’ trash indicated that surveillance of radical TESC activities was in full swing.
On July 2, 2008, PMR-INFO participants sighted a Stryker convoy heading Southbound from Tacoma, and called an emergency evening meeting at Sylvester Park in downtown Olympia. On July 12, a large ship with the profile of an LMSR (a kind of US Navy vehicle cargo ship) was sighted at Everett, possibly taking a shipment of Strykers out of Puget Sound, or into it.
On July 23, 2008 Bryan Rivera, a.k.a Bryan Lefey, a.k.a. “Rat Dog,” was arrested at his home in Olympia by FBI agents, on a warrant from actions he took in Wisconsin, in 2000. He had been arrested or ticketed by Olympia Police just a month earlier on an unrelated charge.
From July 29th through August 4th, 2008 the 4/2 Strykers which had left Tacoma in March 2007 returned to Tacoma via the USNS Brittin. This time, PMR participants blockaded the Strykers at the gates of Fort Lewis itself for the first time. They used small teams of persons in cars, driving to the exit ramps which served Fort Lewis, and managed to stage several human blockades before being arrested. Six persons were arrested early on August 2ndand three more persons were arrested early on August 3rd. This was the first time that the movement of military convoys had been challenged at the gates of the base rather than at the ports.
The emails obtained from Lakewood PD since the protests paint a picture of close surveillance of the meeting spaces being used by PMR. Jack Nasworthy, an intelligence Detective for the Tacoma Police Department, and an agent for Regional Intelligence Group 5 (RIG 5), posted on August 2nd at 8PM that “Tacoma anarchists are pulling out tonight. They don’t want to get arrested with the RNC so close. Will have approximate numbers of protesters in about an hour. Plan is still to attempt and blockade Ft Lewis Gates. “
Almost three hours later, at 10:45PM he posted again: “After meeting for over four hours, the Olympia SDS and PMR groups are leaving now for both the Port of Tacoma and Ft. Lewis, most likely exit 120, the main gate. Five are expected to go to the port, with a possible plan of human blockade, or just a surveillance operation. The remaining 15 or so are going to Ft Lewis to blockade using Sleeping Dragons. Numbers are small, and Tacoma anarchists have pulled out. Some of the leadership left today for the RNC, and the rest are leaving tomorrow.”
Especially telling is that his email distribution list does not contain the names of any of the Fort Lewis Force Protection personnel or the office email, though it is widely distributed to others including the Air Force, Tacoma PD, and Pierce County Sheriffs. The source of the information might have been Jack Nasworthy, or may have come from John Towery. It is obvious that if it was obtained directly by Ft Lewis agents sitting in on the meeting, that Fort Lewis’ intelligence fusion cell was not in need of the posts by RIG5. This indicates that Nasworthy knew of Towery’s role as a spy within the antiwar organizing, if not his role as a source of the information Nasworthy was reporting as his own product.
Earlier on August 2nd the Olympia and Tacoma PMR participants had held a rally on I-5 exit 122, at which Thomas McCarthy was arrested by the Washington State Patrol for “depositing trash on the highway” after he unloaded protest signs from his truck exactly where they had told him to unload it. Afterwards, the WSP officers loaded the signs back into the truck, then unloaded the truck again and took pictures of the signs on the ground where they had placed them. Olympia cop watchers shot photos of the entire event. The case was finally dismissed on February 25, 2009.
After the end of the PMR actions, on August 6th, Gary Smith of RIG 5 sent out a notice to Lakewood Police about a supposed attack (on the night prior) on an Air Force recruiting center in Tacoma. The notice cited a post on Seattle Indymedia, which claimed to be in solidarity with “…those confronting the monstrosities at the Port of Tacoma…” and the web post also claimed that the center was in ‘Spanaway.’ A later check of Tacoma police records (the recruiting center was actually in the city) showed no report of an actual action or sabotage at the location, or in the area. However, the route from the Tillicum / Lakewood area to John Towery’s home just happens to pass the location mentioned by the web post. Towery lives in Spanaway and might have thought the recruiting center was in his own town rather than Tacoma, due to the proximity.
This effort was followed with a post on Seattle Indymedia on August 8, 2008 which claimed to be an “older activist” who had evidence that they had uncovered proof of an informant in PMR.
Meeting to show evidence of a spy.
I am not one of the kids who goes out and stands in the road trying to block an army convoy. Perhaps in my youth I did such things, but my health and age no longer allow me to demonstrate in this way.
However, I pay close attention to the actions of the government, especially the police, and hold them accountable for what they do and fail to do. If you know what to ask for it is often possible to gather gems hidden in the public record.
Recently I have been looking at police expense reports. Now while they tried to black out the names on the reports (they crossed out names with a black marker) I found that a little solvent and a bright light let those names be read. Unfortunately, scanning the original document makes the blacked out name illegible when posted to a web-page.
It seems that a certain woman arrested at the Port demonstrations has also been having lunch with the cops , at county expense!
I will show the original document to anyone who wants to see it, but of course have to be careful so the cops can’t get it back. Meet here...
Enqvnapr Ureof Naq Znffntr 113 5gu Nir FR Bylzcvn Fngheqnl gur 15gu ng 2CZ
(ROT 13 encryption decodes this as:
Radiance Herbs And Massage 113 5th Ave SE Olympia Saturday the 15th at 2PM. )
The 15th was a Friday, not a Saturday, so we sent teams to cover the location both days and experienced lots of sketchy types and surveillance on Friday, but none on Saturday. Emails later obtained showed that the original Seattle IMC post had triggered an email from Christopher Adamson, a Pierce County Sheriff’s Department Detective Sergeant, to remind his people not to put anything incriminating on expense sheets. He also notes that the post “…is probably BS” and that he is “…not sure who is on the fishing trip.”
Later “Open Posted” approaches used the same “ROT 13” cipher, and attempted to discredit both “KteeO” and Drew Hendricks. It seems likely these were Fort Lewis based efforts to identify PMR activists who responded to the approaches, and sow distrust and suspicion among them. The next shipments they were working toward would occur in October. PMR would miss these.
On October 30th the TESC and City of Olympia sponsored DRC talks got underway with an invitation letter sent out to the hand picked persons who would take part in them.
November 2, 2008
Dear Member of the Community,
We are inviting you to join us for a series of three community conversations. The series is structured to help our community develop the mutual understanding necessary to constructively address the disagreements over the use of the Port of Olympia for military shipments, which has led to community tensions, distrust and confrontations. This series is not intended to reach agreements, change public policy or make decisions; we seek to listen and better understand each other’s values and concerns.
This series will take place on three consecutive Monday evenings, December 1st, 8th and 15th, at Jefferson Middle School on the west side of Olympia, 2000 Conger Ave., which is a half block west of Division.
In November, 2008 someone again spray painted the State Capitol again, with the slogans “No WAR” and a ‘circle-A.’ Mixed Martial Arts Fighter Jeff Monson, who lived in Olympia and took part in the May 2006 PMR actions, was charged with the graffiti after photos were published of him doing the act. The photos had been taken by a photographer for a sports magazine which had been interviewing him about his Anarchist political philosophy. Once Monson had been identified, the costs associated with the cleanup suddenly were inflated from an estimated $5,000 to almost $25,000.
In early November, 2008 a GI Rights project called Coffee Strong opened its doors in Lakewood, across the interstate from the Berkeley gate to Fort Lewis. This was a coffee shop explicitly devoted to making off base space for soldiers needing counseling or political organizing support, and was opened in reaction to the documentary film “Sir, No Sir!” which chronicled the GI resistance to the Viet Nam war.
In response to the planned Grand Opening, RIG5 chief Chris Adamson wrote in an email “I’ll let the arson guys know.” Within a few weeks, someone had indeed tried to light the building on fire with a molotov cocktail.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/61831462/Re-GI-Coffee-House-Grand-Opening
On November 15, 2008 PMR held an anniversary march in downtown Olympia after a rally at Sylvester Park. The cops were out in force, and we photographed at least 13 separate officers in several cars, in addition to WSP unmarked units and at least three OPD officers in full riot armor inside their PIT training car. We didn’t realize it at the time, but the Olympia Police had shot Jose Ramirez-Jimenez to death early that morning after a high speed chase from Olympia into Lacey, and they apparently expected the PMR participants to know about this and to do something about it. Tacoma police were musing about the upcoming rally on their own agendas as well, two days prior to the event, even though it was not planned to have any impact on Tacoma.
The investigation of the case later revealed that OPD officers Charles Gassett, Paul Bakala, and Michael Hovda had shot Jose Ramirez-Jimenez to death in his car, despite the car being disabled and unable to move – and despite the passenger being removed without incident from the vehicle. They blamed Jose for his own death, claiming that he represented a significant escape risk (he did not) or could have presented a lethal threat to the officers (he never shot at them and was unable to use his car as a weapon, since it it was still tangled with Charles Gassett’s patrol vehicle, which he had used as a ram in the effort to stop Jose.). After they removed Jose from the car, they cut off his clothes and took full frontal trophy photos of his dead body. The only non-police eyewitness would later recount that her statement was not recorded, and the report made from her words did not match her memories of the incident.
On December 12, 2008 several Anarchists marched in downtown Olympia in solidarity with the anarchist uprisings in Greece. Olympia Police Detective Jeffrey Herbig photographed and videotaped the march as it wound its way through the streets of downtown Olympia. There was one arrest (Steven J Jablonski DOB 4-2-89) by OPD Jason Watkins. Requests for records later on revealed that the photographs from this march were still “under investigation” weeks later. Later still, OPD Detective Jeffrey Herbig, who was responsible for storing the videotape he shot, would admit in a written memo on July 2009 that the 12/08 videotape had been “lost.” We can only guess by whom, since it seems likely to have been shared with intelligence professionals elsewhere in the ecosystem of surveillance. There were eight OPD officers who wrote up reports for the march, which lasted only about an hour or so. Evidence technician and videotape custodian Chet Mackaben wrote that the video was not in his indexes as having been filed by Detective Herbig. http://www.flickr.com/photos/29801588@N08/3383161800/in/photostream
2009
January 27, 2009 – PM “A Call to Action” documentary film about PMR Nov 2007 (Noah Sochet, AJ) was presented at TESC Lecture Hall followed by an Oly26 Panel Discussion. (This was the name of the group of persons – mostly women – who were then being prosecuted for the November 2007 PMR arrests) TESC geography professor Zoltan Grossman lost his wallet at the event. It was returned to him through TESC Police Services later. He is one of two antiwar persons known to me to have lost wallets in that single week.
On January 8th 2009 I notified the NWAIDAC list of a positive development in our strategic intelligence “picture” of how Stryker combat vehicles were supported in North America.
STRYKER PARTS WAREHOUSE
“The Auburn Stryker parts warehouse location offers us a PERMANENT point of confrontation, at a fixed location, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per
year (except leap year). And this point of confrontation would interdict 100% of parts supplies for ALL US Military Stryker units, globally. It’s just south of the Supermall, in Auburn / Algona. Making that site public and political could have far reaching consequences for the anti-militarization effort for a long time.”
This proposal was taken up by NWAIDAC on Saturday, February 7th 2009 at Coffee Strong in Lakewood. It was adopted at a subsequent meeting (Feb 21st), and planning began. What was eventually decided was to come up with an “Action Proposal” presentation (power point) and then tour the region with that proposal to build momentum for a mass action at the site.
A few days after the initial proposal to target the Auburn General Dynamics Land Systems warehouse, on February 13, 2009, I was picked up by “John Jacob” in his blue Pontiac Aztek and driven to the Auburn GSA complex to tour the warehouse. He circled the facility and pointed out obsolete unit markings on the walls, the remnants of earlier tenants. The warehouse complex had been built during World War Two. I took photographs of the facility and we drove back to Olympia so I could analyze them. I later returned to the site and took more photos, with another crew of persons.
On February 18, 2009 I speculated on PMR and NWAIDAC email lists about the potential of the 5/2 Strykers flying into Afghanistan, raising the possibility of our having no chance for road blockades if they fly all the way from the U.S. to Afghanistan. This analysis was based on the probability of the Strykers being unable to land in Pakistan by ship, and then traverse the Khyber pass into Afghanistan. That pass is famous for being a death trap for land based forces. The Strykers eventually went by ship to Diego Garcia, which is in the Southern Indian Ocean, and then from Diego Garcia to Afghanistan by air.
The February 21st meeting of NWAIDAC ended up being at a private house, and except for the Action Proposal (April 5th 2009) and one subcommittee meeting afterwards, NWAIDAC was from then on essentially a series of meetings held at private houses rather than in public spaces. The meetings continued to dwindle in attendance and eventually petered out altogether, just like Olympia PMR had done from time to time. “Disappearing Subcommittees” are a depressingly common feature of political life in Olympia, but this dwindling later appeared to be the result of hostile rumor campaigns.
That night, February 21, 2009, TESC police services officers Tyson Forrest and Dwight Monohan showed up to Anarchist documentary event at Evergreen Sem II B-1106, and dicked around for most of an hour before opening the door. Monohan crept up on the second or third level of the complex with a large camera, and pointed it at the milling participants. Later he was challenged by Olympia Copwatchers on the ground level, and took a photo of Drew Hendricks in retaliation for this challenge. TESC later claims he deleted the single photograph he shot that night. It seems unlikely that this collection of intelligence was uncoordinated with other law enforcement agencies in the region.
Tor Bjornstad – Olympia Cop; Gary Michel – his Chief at the time; Cathie Butler – City Communication Director (the person who sets the agenda actual); Steve Hall – City Manager; Tom Rudd – TOWERY’s BOSS DIRECTLY CONTACTED BEFORE HE WAS OUTED; Clint Colvin, USCG Intelligence now in private practice as a PI in WA.
Port of Olympia
The Threat Model: This is it, this was what PMR did that sparked all the attention.
The attention never really stopped. The daylight convoys? Stopped.
March 2nd 2009: A date which will live in Infamy
Coincidences tend to be distrusted by those who study the history of spying
On February 25, 2009 we got a peek at the future and a lesson in our recent past when a Tacoma activist and public documents researcher posted this email on the Seattle Indymedia news website:
City of Tacoma Email Shows Spying on PitchPipe
author: Anonymous
Feb 25, 2009 17:27
Well here is an email that confirms the place was being watched and that the TPD was passing information to the U.S. Army.
______________________________________________________________________
To: ‘Rudd, Thomas R CIV USA IMCOM'[thomas.r.rudd@us.army.mil]; ‘Towery II, John J CIV USA IMCOM'[john.towery@us.army.mil]; Kortjohn, Mike[MKortjohn@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; ‘dmalcom@portoftacoma.com'[dmalcom@portoftacoma.com]; ‘Williams, Manuel'[mwilliams@portoftacoma.com]; Miller, Michael[MMILLER2@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; Strickland, Thomas[TStrickl@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; ‘Adamson Christopher Lt Col 116 ASOS'[Christopher.Adamson@wataco.ang.af.mil]; Gustason, Shawn[SGUSTASO@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; Hayes, Barton[BHayes2@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; Barrett, James[Jbarrett@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; Shipp, Jeff[jshipp@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; Roberts, Alan[AROBERTS2@ci.tacoma.wa.us]; ‘Rick Adamson'[RADAMSO@co.pierce.wa.us];
Subject: Activity Information
Sent: Fri 8/1/2008 7:54:10 PM
From: Nasworthy, Jack
There was no activity at Tollefson Plaza from 1100 hrs through to 1245 hours, with zero anarchists / protestors showing. There was no activity at the Pitch Pipe from 1030 hours on.
Det. Jack M. Nasworthy
Regional Intelligence Group
Tacoma Police Department
Desk (253) 830-6589
jnaswort@ci.tacoma.wa.us
____________________________________________________________________
This news post turned out to create a bit of a panic on Fort Lewis, since it documented for the first time in public that local police were sharing information with US Army and US Air Force units. (It was not clear yet from this email that the information was actually going the other direction, as well.) I had not yet cataloged all of the persons in the email and found the coincidence of John Towery’s residential locale being near to “John Jacobs’” self-reported city of residence. (That work would not happen until late June, 2009.)
I received and began analysis on the email package from the Tacoma Police on February 26, 2009, but I focused mostly on the tactics, techniques and procedures used to get convoys of Stryker combat vehicles from the Fort to the Port and vice versa. The package was a gold mine of planning information, and I noted that they tended to use night time, early morning convoys and tended to push the convoys to two nights of activity rather than the week or ten days we had previously noticed in 2006 and 2007. I posted these developments to the PMR and NWAIDAC lists. We also noticed that the coordination of military shipments began about six to eight weeks prior to the arrival of the ships themselves. What we did not know at the time was that the next shipment would take place on May Day, 2009.
Part of the package was a large set of Tacoma Police Homeland Security Subcommittee Meeting Minutes. The package was missing some important dates (namely June 20 through August 13, 2008) and had other interesting redactions, but it was in general a good overview of the scope of the Tacoma Police Department’s involvement with domestic political spying on the region, not just on civil resistance but on other kinds of political expression as well.
The day after the Seattle IMC message about Tacoma Police spying appeared, the link was posted to the NWAIDAC list which John Towery was subscribed to, and by Monday March 2nd a “point paper” was created at Fort Lewis which noted several key observations. (This point paper was not known to us until December 2010.) I’ll quote the first page because it is a good example of Fort Lewis’ commanders’ knowledge of what John Towery was up to at the time, in their own words.
02 Mar 2009
SUBJECT: Inadvertent Release under FOIA and Web Site posts
- Purpose: To address Senior Commander concerns over recent web posts and Fort Lewis Force Protection operations.
2. Assessment:
- There has been minimal reaction to the postings on Seattle Indymedia and Tacoma Students for a Democratic Society. Of the 71 reads of the item many were Tacoma PD and Fort Lewis personnel who were informed of the posting. (emphasis added)
- Release of any email documents related to deployment / redeployment operations by local law enforcement agencies may put our operations, personnel, or TTP at risk. (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures)
- Possible negative media coverage should mainstream media decide to report US military “spying” on protesters. (emphasis added)
- Future information sharing operations with local agencies are at risk because we cannot depend on them to comply with FOIA restrictions and / or our dissemination guidance.
- Recommendation(s):
- Fort Lewis leadership express their displeasure with their Tacoma counterparts of the mishandling of this FOIA request.
- Fort Lewis FP Division relook information sharing TTP.
- PAO prepare a media response stating that Fort Lewis conducts Force Protection operations in support of Soldier, Family Member and workforce safety. (etc)
Some questions arise from analysis of the document.
How do they know who is reading the Seattle IMC posts? How common is that kind of analysis? Does it also apply to mainstream news sites?
Why is their concern over “military spying,” when the post they are referring to is alleging Tacoma PD spying? (All of this is happening four months before Towery will be named by me at a council meeting of the City of Olympia.)
Why are they upset that TPD violated FOIA, when local open records access laws are state level laws and are not as restrictive as Federal FOIA? We do know now that the Homeland Security Meeting Minutes were never again compiled, according to public records officers for the Tacoma PD when follow-up requests were made.
What is immediately apparent from the record in hindsight, is that they needed to neutralize our ability to trust one another, and to predict when military shipments would be coming. To do this, they tried to damage my own reputation for making these predictions successfully.
On the same day, March 2nd 2009, I got a couple of communications from John “Jacob” Towery, one via email and one via Seattle IMC:
[ No Subject ]
Monday, March 2, 2009 8:51 AM
From:
“agent_orange@riseup.net” <agent_orange@riseup.net>
To:
drewhend98513@yahoo.com, rinXX@coXXX.org, khaXXXXX@evergreen.edu
DoD Announces Iraq Unit Rotations
The Department of Defense announced today that 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based in Ft. Lewis, Wash., will deploy in the fall of 2009 to support Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The brigade consists of approximately 4,000 personnel and will deploy as a replacement unit for a formation currently operating in Iraq. Its deployment will provide commanders in Iraq the flexibility to maintain the appropriate level of effort based on their assessment of the security situation on the ground.
Unit deployments reflect the continued commitment of the United States to the security of the Iraqi people. The Department recognizes the continued sacrifices of these units and their family members.
The same information was posted to Seattle IMC at 10:39 AM but was worded differently. It quoted an AP story rather than the DOD press release.
(http://old.seattle.indymedia.org/en/2009/03/271809.shtml)
March 2nd 2009 turned out to be a very important date in the history of civil resistance in the Northwest. An anarchist “popular assembly” meeting (Meeting One) was scheduled to begin at the First Christian Church that night, from 6PM until 8PM. TESC Vice President for Diversity Affairs, Gallegos, attended the opening remarks and then left after he collected the newly published Olympia Copwatch profiles of several OPD officers, from a table at the event. TESC professor Joe Tougas attended the rest of the session, joining the “radical accountability break out group” – which was headed by PMR participant and TESC SDS member Brooke Stepp. When I later sent an email message to the subcommittee raising concerns about TESC professors taking part in radical accountability processes in Olympia, I was apparently cut out of further organizing and saw no more emails from that subcommittee.
In January 2010, Brooke would file for a court order of no contact against Brendan Dunn, another SDS organizer at TESC, and her former boyfriend. Brendan was the organizer who in February 2009 had requested OPD’s emails and documents relating to SDS, Anarchists, and PMR participants – a document set which eventually revealed the email that gave us John Towery’s role in local spying for the US Army.
Meanwhile, also on March 2nd 2009, a military ship called the Cape Knox sailed into to land at a terminal we had never seen them use before. I only saw the shipment the next Friday, and began to work back through the database of radio signals to identify when it had arrived. It had apparently landed Monday, March 2nd during the “popular assembly” meeting in Olympia, and also during the first day of the The War and Resistance Conference ( a week long conference) being held at Bellingham. It is not known if this timing was coordinated due to Towery’s access to regional schedules of activities, or was merely a coincidence. After a few days of trying to figure out what the Cape Knox was up to, I was again treated to a gloating Seattle Indymedia post which harped on my “inability to process what I was receiving” from my network, which still included John Towery.
On March 24, 2009, I spoke to the Olympia City council about the TESC and City sponsored “Community Conversations,” and mentioned that I got the participant list from the Olympia Police Department, despite the OPD having nothing to do directly with the organizing of the conversations. That evening, probably at Media Island, my cellular phone went missing. It was discovered gone the next morning, and Friday showed up again in a bag already emptied and searched to its stitches. I had slept at Media Island once during the time the phone was missing, and so certain transient residents of the Island become prime suspects in the placement of the phone back into the bag (in an interior pocket). One of these transient residents was also present at Media Island during the August 2008 actions in Tacoma. outing of a homeland security agent and phone problems mirrors Drew’s experience of Summer 2006 quite closely. I responded to the theft by retiring the phone I had recovered, and replacing it with an identical model.
In 2010, a second parallel phone theft event happened, this time leaving only one suspect individual who could have done the job. He is Michael Chad Rushing, and he is a transient methamphetamine addict and World of Warcraft player who had basically had access to Media Island as a kind of grifter for about four months in late 2008, and most of Spring 2009 through Summer 2010. He is suspected of both thefts, and of being heavily involved in spying on social networks in Olympia for various sponsors.
On March 27, 2009 at 7:41AM “PMR-INFO Tacoma” posted to Seattle IMC speculating that the 5/2 SBCT might fly to Afghanistan, citing a DOD story which had been specially constructed to convince us that it was a real news story about the shipment. PMR-INFO Olympia later disclaimed this post (and disagreed with it in the site comments). This turned out to be John Jacob Towery’s post (to Seattle IMC) and he later admitted to posting the story in a phone conversation he had with Drew Hendricks. This action began the investigation which would eventually out Towery as a US Army spy.
On April 4, 2009, Several Olympia area organizers from NWAIDAC, IWW, SDS, and PMR met up at the house of Brendan Dunn, regarding the ‘Facebook’ identities and apparent friendship ties of two suspect persons. Amber McClintonand Sandy ImNotTelling were both new arrivals to Facebook, and had too many facebook ‘friends’ in Olympia circles (and each other). No one we could identify had ever met Amber in real life. Sandy turned up in person at Tacoma on March 22, 2009 and in Olympia at the April 5th (NWAIDAC) action proposal presentation.
At a later NWAIDAC intelligence subcommittee meeting, Sandy ImNotTelling revealed to Drew Hendricks that she was a former military intelligence officer who missed ‘stop loss’ by just two months (supposedly due to pregnancy when the Gulf War re-started in March 2003). She also claimed to speak Farsi. Sandy said she lived in Ruston, a small suburb of Tacoma which is also the home of 833rdTX Battalion Terminal Coordinator Phillip Fantozzi. In reality, she lives near Yelm, WA and works as a teacher in that district. Her husband is Michael Kortjohn, the Tacoma Police intelligence operative noted in the Feb 25th2009 email linking Tacoma Police to the US Army and US Air Force. Sandy Kortjohn was immediately suspected by Drew Hendricks of being a spy against NWAIDAC and was tasked with gathering lists of the cops we might face if we were to sponsor a direct mass action in the Algona / Auburn area. Her lists were later checked against lists we had already obtained covertly, to reveal who would be trying to infiltrate our protests there. She tried to hand off the third list by compact disk but that offer was not accepted.
The “Action Proposal” by NWAIDAC on April 5th was heavily attended. It took place in the MIXX96 meeting room downtown, on Washington Street. Sandy “ImNotTelling” Kortjohn attended, and joined the “intelligence subcommittee” of NWAIDAC along with one other person, a TESC student. Several subcommittees were formed, and a schedule of further regional action proposals was agreed to, but NWAIDAC soon fell apart over rumors of a sexual assault within the organizing structure of the TESC students who were involved. Later on, this will come out in a limited way with Brooke Stepp’s application for a restraining order against Brendan Dunn.
On April 7th, 2009 I (Drew Hendricks) woke up at my friend’s house and turned on my phone to get messages and coordinate work with my boss. I almost immediately noticed that the Washington State Patrol Cessna was flying a beeline to my location and pointed out the aircraft to my surprised friend. The plane then ran in circles over the apartment house, so I took several photographs of it and later published them online.
The same plane then circled again in the evening, as I was leaving work for downtown Olympia (where I was sleeping that night). Unknown to me at the time, several 5/2 Stryker combat vehicles were moving out of the base on a “training mission” – (more likely a convoy-to-port test) via the “Roy Y” – an intersection of highways on the rural Eastern side of the base. One of the combat vehicles struck a civilian truck on the highway, crushing Greg Wood at 4:40PM. The WSP Cessna was still on task following my movements 20 minutes after Mr Wood was killed, partially answering the question of just how high a priority my movements were, to the WSP and US Army that day. This set of circumstances was likely a test of whether I had observers noting all movements on Interstate 5 and Fort Lewis gates on April 7th, in preparation of a threat assessment for the movement of the 5/2 SBCT on May Day 2009, or perhaps the 2-25th SBCT two week earlier.
Over the next few days, several support persons noted vehicles following them at their houses or on the way to and from work or shopping. At least one pair of observers noted were US postal inspectors or other government employees using a Postal Inspectors’ car, license PO 6495. They were noted taking down license numbers at a residential parking lot.
As the 2009 May Day “Hoe-Down” at South Puget Sound Community College was getting underway May 1st, observers stationed on Interstate 5 confirmed at 8PM that Fort Lewis was sending convoys out to the Port of Tacoma just as PMR-INFO had predicted. I almost immediately issued an alert, which is an advisory to begin to take up actions in small affinity groups and go out to resist the war. In response, the convoys stopped after just three hours of operations that night.
Over the next few days, several carloads of persons attempted (and three succeeded) to make human blockades at the entrances to Fort Lewis. Two teams, totaling five persons, were arrested before midnight on May Day, and one team of four persons was arrested the next night. Both Lakewood and Fort Lewis Police took part in the arrests. US Army Agent John Towery participated as an intelligence asset “for” PMR-INFO, two months after the Army had written about their worry on March 2nd that the mainstream corporate media might report that the military was “spying on protesters.” The Army had been warned of his participation by the revealed Tacoma Police emails, but the Army had not stopped him yet; he would not be named publicly by Olympia PMR until late July, 2009.
Throughout April and May, many “false flag” posts appeared on Seattle IMC, including an attempted “secret cryptogram” approach to “Sabre Team,” which was a reporting unit of PMR-INFO that had already revealed its name in open source posts on Seattle IMC. (A similar “secret cryptogram” approach had been used against Olympia SDS organizer KteeO in Fall, 2008.) These false name uses caused many PMR-INFO units to change their names frequently and use dual channel communication to verify with each other what was really going on. Open source intelligence posts were a rich source of confusion for persons not directly organized with PMR, and NWAIDAC, and so were unable to verify the story through second and third channels to the sources. The result was to isolate what had been an open-source and mass resistance, to make it a smaller and thus easier clique to watch.
On Monday, May 4th OlyPMR’s riseup list was found to be only semi-functional, sometimes holding messages for hours at a time. The use of Twitter for the observation reporting was working, but only for those who showed up to get the phone number directly at meetings.
On May 6, Coffee Strong received a letter from the Lakewood city Planning Department, questioning the upcoming planned demonstration at I-5 exit 122 which had been advertised by Coffee Strong on their website. The letter had been coordinated with Lakewood PD Lt Mauer, who requested that his planning department “keep him in the loop.” They did. Later news stories listed Lt Mauer as the “Military Liason” for the Lakewood police.
On May 7th, Coffee Strong organizer Seth Manzel responded to the letter from the City of Lakewood planning department about his upcoming ‘parade’ and the city’s licensing requirements for future live entertainment at the shop. He stated that he felt Coffee Strong was being harassed by the City of Lakewood, and asked how the planning department knew about the events. The city planning employee told him she knew because she was part of the Coffee Strong Facebook group. She had likely been tipped to become part of it by the Lakewood Police Department, which had already been tipped by its Crime Analyst on April 23rd. The specific evidence of this was not preserved in the email documentation, so the tip may have happened informally through another conversation. The timing was interesting, since Coffee Strong had by this point existed at least 6 months.
On May 8, 2009 PMR Tacoma and PMR Olympia held a rally downtown in Tacoma, and I worked the event as a cop watcher. I took photographs of several Tacoma police officers, and three undercover persons who appeared to be police of some sort. Mr Mogri, the fashion photographer, again took pictures of the event. He was seen and photographed speaking with Federal Protective Service agent McConnell in front of the US Court House downtown in Tacoma. Later on, after dark, a sound cart procession walked down to the gates of East Blair One terminal. No one was arrested, but the police presence was overwhelming in numbers and they stole the sound cart, citing a noise ordinance and demanding someone provide ID to get the property back later. This paralleled what had happened to sound carts in Olympia. Keep in mind this “noise disturbance” was in the middle of a heavy industrial zone which was the former site of an aluminum smelter, more than a mile from the closest residential area.
May 9, 2009 – The “Stop Loss” rally at I-5 exit 119 planned by Coffee Strong came off with minimal interference and no enforcement of a “parade permit” as contemplated by the Lakewood City Planning Department in the days preceding.
On May 12, 2009 the Green Dale also landed at East Blair One and picked up the remainder of the 5/2 Strykers to take them to Diego Garcia, in the southern Indian Ocean.
With the arrival of the ship, one OMJP listserv participant noticed (and commented) that he had seen almost 24 hours of no list activity on the OMJP list, Monday May 11th through Tuesday May 12, 6PM.
The two ships arrived at Diego Garcia just about a month later, on May 31st (Great Land) and June 5th (Green Dale) respectively. By August 9th the Strykers had been reset on Diego Garcia and flown into Afghanistan by contracted Russian and US Air Force aircraft.
On June 13, I attended the strangest Olympia PMR social event in my entire experience of Olympia. The suspect in the cellular telephone theft in March 2009 was there (Michael Chad Rushing), although the party was across town and completely outside his normal social scene. (He was not political, nor educated, nor especially into alcohol). He spent the entire time whispering in my ear about how he was spying and I was spying and etc etc etc. I tried to avoid him for most of the party.
Then, a woman who was moving to the Southeastern US the next week said to me (in the middle of the kitchen): “I hope you’re not really a cop, and I hope you’re not really a rapist.” She gave no explanation of her statements.
Next, a man who had been arrested at Seattle during an anarchist march there earlier that year asked me if I would go shooting with his friends and him, “to work out some things” related to what needed to be done politically in the region. I let him know that my public position as an intelligence asset and coordinator made it impossible for me to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights, which have long been denied to radicals in the United States.
I already knew how to shoot, and I didn’t need to spend money on ammunition to practice something which would not win us freedom from the US military, which has considerably more firepower than we could overcome through force. As I explained this refusal for the fourth or fifth time, I noted that the entire conversation was being monitored by Michael Chad Rushing, the cellular phone thief and Media Island social infiltrator. The ‘shooting enthusiast’ eventually relented. His funeral would become a site of WSP interest in 2010.
Towery is finally caught / The Network is exposed at last, slowly over years
But first, a Panic and Paperwork
A Fort Lewis Spy is finally outed
It isn’t paranoia, if it’s vigilance
From June 20th through June 24th, I spent most of my time making index cards from each of the persons named in the OPD email public records we had gotten, and cross indexing these identities with Washington State Voter registrations, property records, and the earlier Tacoma Police emails obtained by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Tacoma in February. It was on the night of the 23rd of June that I found that John J Towery was likely “John Jacob,” who had been infiltrating our PMR organizing since at least September 2007 (I would later learn from others that this had begun in May 2007, and that he had been involved with countering PMR from the opposite side since March 2007 at the Port of Tacoma movement of the 4/2 Strykers to Iraq.
As soon as John Towery had been named and identified with Fort Lewis Force Protection, I removed him from access to the Olympia PMR listserv and began working on confirming his vehicles at the listed address I had obtained from the Voter records of Pierce County. This effort would take most of the next 4 weeks, and involve photos at his house (of his car in the driveway) and in Olympia, where we shot photos of his face and his motorcycle. The motorcycle ended up being linked online to his name through his motorcycle club, the “Iron Butt Association” which we found through observing a license plate holder on that vehicle. Within a week of securing proofs of his identity I announced the news at an Olympia City Council meeting on July 21, 2009. The next day, the news was posted on open web sites Portland and Seattle Indymedia, as well as Olyblog.net and assorted news sources online such as Tacoma SDS. Of course the news also went out on all of the activist listservs active at the time: OMJP, OlyPMR, NWAIDAC, SDS, etc.
Before I could verify Towery’s identity, I tried several times to secure verification without involving other investigators. The first way I tried to do this was on June 26 2009 , when I tried to call John Towery at his work number on the base, from a pay phone in Lacey. I intended to compare his voice mail message with the voice I knew as “John Jacob” and record it for others to hear as well. The pay phone took 30 seconds or more to decide that the line I was calling was busy, and I retried the call, but again it failed to go through to a voice mail. Just before noon, 20 minutes after this attempted call, a twin-propeller mid-size gray aircraft circled my employer’s house for about 35 minutes (until 12:25 PM). Photos I took of this aircraft were posted to Flickr and to Seattle IMC. The airplane is not yet explained as of this writing, but seems to be a model used both by the Washington Air National Guard and the US Army for battlefield surveillance. It is known as a Metroliner C-26.
As it became more and more obvious that I would not be able to travel undetected to Spanaway, Washington where Towery lived, I called on several trusted people by word of mouth and casual contact to bring them into the investigation. Eventually, the number of people involved reached about 12 other individuals. First one, and then another got us pictures of the two vehicles we knew were linked to “John Jacob,” one of them at his house and later on, one in Olympia.
On July 21, 2009 I spoke before the Olympia City Council to state that John Jacob Towery was an employee of Fort Lewis Force Protection, and had infiltrated Olympia PMR and Anarchist groups in Tacoma and Olympia for at least two years. Police Commander Tor Bjornstad turned to his companion at the meeting and shrugged.
The next day I posted the proofs on several web sites. On July the 23rd Towery met with Brendan Dunn and an activist from Tacoma and admitted to them that he had been an employee of Fort Lewis and a spy against Olympia PMR. They in turn shared their notes and recollections of the meeting with me.
Towery tried to convince us that the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office had turned him when he appeared at a protest in Tacoma (against the Weapons Expo at the Convention Center there) and had forced him to act as an informant, by holding his job hostage to his professed political position as an ‘Anarchist’. But we already knew this was bullshit; he had already contacted us from his workplace by cell phone, and checked his Riseup (OlyPMR administrator) account from a US DOD network at the base. For someone trained in information security, it was a dead giveaway that he was not really trying to hide his actions from his bosses in July 2009.
(In early December, 2010 the US Attorney handling the lawsuit against the Force Protection unit at Fort Lewis accepted that John Towery had been acting as an agent of the US Government and agreed to defend him in the court case, after the Associated Press discovered and wrote about the March 2, 2009 “point paper” which mused about “military spying on protesters.” With this document, it is now clear that Ft Lewis’ commanders knew of Towery’s role as an infiltrator.)
A week after my original outing of Towery at the City Council meeting, on July 28 Brendan Dunn and I appeared live on the Democracy Now television broadcast, from Seattle via satellite. Our segment would end up being nearly 40 minutes of the 60 minute show. As we drove back to Olympia from the news station, I took a photo of the recently completed intelligence headquarters of the United States Coast Guard from Highway 99 South in Seattle.
The infighting and recriminations arising from the identification of Towery, and my own role in granting him access to the Oly PMR listserv as an administrator, began the very next day and culminated in an August 2nd Olympia PMR meeting, at which a group of around 6 or 7 women entered about 20 minutes late, as a caucus. It was the last time I was allowed to enter an Olympia PMR meeting in 2009. By the time 2010 had rolled around, the “disappearing subcommittee” activist culture of Olympia had allowed PMR to wane as an organized activity. There would be no known PMR resistance in 2010, despite two successful predictions of military shipments, one of which was made with four weeks of warning. On the other hand, the 4/2 Strykers were documented coming back to the US from Iraq through the Port Canaveral, Florida marine terminal. That port has the distinction of being as far as one can get from Tacoma, in the lower 48 States.
On August 11, 2009 the FCC visited a transmitter location they believed was involved with Free Radio Olympia, a “pirate” community radio station which had been operating in Olympia since March, 2001. From 2004 until I had resigned from FRO in 2007, I was the only disk jockey at Free Radio Olympia who was publicly acknowledged by name, and had been on YouTube as a spokesperson for the collective. The FCC was already aware of my role in FRO, and so the possibility remains that this visit was merely a coincidence with Towery’s outing. The other possibility (of Federal retribution) also exists.
Chris Adamson was forced to explain himself:
Afterward (2011)
If someone had told me that two hundred and fifty college kids, simply by standing in a road over the course of five years at strategic times, could force the United States Army to choose to avoid the Port of Olympia, I would have thought they were smoking much better marijuana than I was. I might even ask them for a hit. But that is essentially what happened in Olympia. Over the course of four and a half years (Nov 2004 through May 2009) simple, low cost direct actions made the US Army’s shipments such an issue that they had to change their tactics, and eventually change their locations and times. They went from daylight, workday operations to midnight, Christmas break operations. They went from Olympia to Tacoma, and then from Tacoma to San Diego California, Beaumont Texas, and Port Canaveral Florida.
The US Army infiltrated, and then disrupted, an organized body of US citizens who were consciously and deliberately enforcing laws which had been promulgated at the end of World War Two. Those laws – the Nuremberg Charter and the United Nations Charter – expressly forbid the prosecution of an aggressive war. The highest crime under these laws is the crime against the peace. The next highest is the crime against humanity. The lowest is the simple war crime. An individual soldier deciding to murder a non combatant civilian is committing a war crime when he does so. A military unit which arrests, tortures, and murders a group of persons because they were union organizers in an oil field is committing a crime against humanity. And a nation which breaks the peace to invade another country, upon no legitimate defensive mission and without provocation, is committing the highest crime – the crime against the peace. It was this law which made all of Olympia’s residents complicit in the crimes which were being facilitated by the use of our Port’s marine terminal. Indeed, the entire County was responsible legally, for the county wide district which owns and operates the Port. The Nuremberg Charter clearly and explicitly leaves us responsible for our government’s actions, including the responsibility to directly take steps to make these crimes impossible to commit.
As the 5/2 Stryker Brigade was returning to Joint Base Lewis McChord in the Fall of 2010, the news broke that several men in their brigade had conspired to murder civilians, and hid that fact from their own command structure. Legal proceedings on the base also revealed that they had been engaged in beatings of fellow soldiers who they suspected of being informants against them. Olympia and Tacoma PMR participants had in early May 2009 tried to keep their equipment home, only to fail to do more than make some symbolic moves to that end. But history will show that they were the only US civilians who even tried to stop what was to come.
2010
Shit like this – posing for photos of an injury you know you made up – for which the arrested man was paid $10K of his bosses’ monies – should get you on the Brady List to be quite honest.
Nope. Pretext arrest, pretext story, still works for that Agency.
2011
2012
May Day 2012
US Court of Appeals is attacked with smoke bombs and flames emerge from the home made devices. A Task Force is engaged to war with Anarchists in the PNW.
2013
April 25 2013: Knock and Talk FBI visits all over PNW before May Day happens to scare the people they think did 2012.
Will they ever stop?
No.
Not unless we make them stop.
Originally tweeted by Public Records Sourcerer (@drimcalban) on January 5, 2021.
Yeah you caught that date – the day before the THING. More about that later on.
2014
Who all ended up as a City Council person after this? Who ended up testifying in court against someone else in the picture? Who’s still all over pages devoted to resistance in Olympia to this very day? Who sent out the big who’s in which subcommittee list and was the only one on each committee? These don’t all describe one person, only most of them do. Well that person also tipped their hand to another person who tipped me.
And now she’s tipping you, too.
Listen to folks who tell you who they are.
2015
DOD TTPs begin to dominate and street protest becomes contested in the PNW by intermediary groups
2016
2017
2018
DOD / Pierce County Relationships become outed casually in some emails
Joey Gibson works with SPD intel Rik Hall by 2018
By this point, JBGC and similar responses had already been organized – but this email hit twitter like a rock through a Starbucks.
2019
Tom Rudd liked the pic someone took of him in preparation for the Suit
Oregon DOJ sends the Burn Notice to Gary Smith and friends – at NCIS. Why the Navy? Well… Gary is in close coordination on all of this for the Region after all. But he’s not sending stuff to the NAVY here, and ODOJ is sending their burn notice to NCIS because they ALSO get stuff FROM NCIS. So, who at NCIS is sending What?
We think we have an idea, but we cannot prove the idea.
Yet.
2020
2021
Wrap Up / Context
Police have a point of view; inherent politics because of what they do. They maintain order by creating chaos and pain in their opponents and they do this with near impunity. They insist on judging themselves, by their internally imposed standards. If you gather and MIGHT create a scene they want to know who you are so they can stop that stuff in advance. They no longer see working with the Military as abnormal in that activity. State Militaries routinely work with local Law Enforcement and the Federal Military does, as well.
Pim Tool is a Fool who lives in the DC area and uses Navy Federal Credit Union
Casually Doxxing Tim Pool https://twitter.com/drimcalban/status/1370588860594360324?s=20
UnderCoverGinger / Damon Huseman and January 6 2021 at the Governor’s Mansion
Public Record Sourcerer 
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