Authors: Mickey Huff
âOxford American English Dictionary
On May 22, 2013,
Democracy Now!
interviewed Matthew Rothschild, editor of the
Progressive,
about his cover story for the June edition entitled “Spying on Occupy Activists.” This story was based on a report I authored that was issued on May 20 by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy, titled
Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.
The report details how counterterrorism personnel employed at many of the nation's “fusion centers” monitored and surveilled citizens engaged in the Occupy Wall Street movement nationwide. While a number of related issues are discussed in “Dissent or Terror,” its central narrative explores the actions of counterterrorism/law enforcement personnel engaged in the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC, commonly known as the “Arizona Fusion Center”) directed toward members of Occupy Phoenix, as well as other Arizona activist groups. Such counterterrorism/law enforcement entities engaged in ACTIC include the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offices of Infrastructure Protection and Intelligence and Analysis, Transportation Security Administration (a DHS component agency), Federal Bureau of Investigation, Arizona Department of Public Safety's Intelligence Bureau, and numerous “homeland defense/counterterrorism” units of Phoenix metropolitan area police departmentsâsuch as the Phoenix Police Department Homeland Defense Bureau (HDB).
Among the key findings discussed in “Dissent or Terror,” as well as the
Progressive's
cover story, is the fact that the Phoenix Police Department (PPD) had dispatched an undercover officer to gather intelligence on the activities of both the Occupy Phoenix movement and activist groups planning protest actions in relation to the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit, which was held in the upscale Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale in late November and early December of that year. This undercover officer, most likely a PPD detective from the Major Offender Bureau by the name of Saul Ayala, had been infiltrating activist groups as early as July 2011 (according to activist accounts) and had been asked to attend and report on activist plans for the launch of Occupy Phoenix (which officially launched over a two-day event held on October 14 and 15) as early as October 2, 2011. In order to execute this infiltration, the undercover detective presented himself to activists as a homeless Mexican national by the name of “Saul DeLara.” Saul attempted to support this false identity and his social networking throughout the Phoenix activist community be establishing a Facebook page under his false name and by gathering numerous activist Facebook “friends.”
Interestingly, according to activist accounts, toward the end of
Saul's infiltration of the Phoenix activist community, he claimed to have ties to certain “anarchist” actions in Mexico. This appears to have been an oblique reference to a group in Mexico calling themselves the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire/Informal Anarchist Federation, which, through a number of anarchist online forums, had claimed responsibility for a fire at Las Torres shopping mall in Juarez on November 2, 2011.
As detailed in “Dissent or Terror,” records obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy show that intelligence gathered by Saul through his infiltration of the Phoenix activist community was reportedâvia his superior, Career Criminal Squad Sgt. Tom Van Dornâto Phoenix police entities, including HDB, and that this intelligence was likely used in the creation of intelligence products that were delivered via ACTIC personnel to private corporations, banks, and security personnel employed by private entities that were subject of Occupy Phoenix protests. Furthermore, records indicate that Ayala and Van Dorn attended a number of meetings at ACTIC, held for the purpose of discussing activist protest plans for the ALEC conference. Records indicate that Michael Rohme, a terrorism liaison officer with the ACTIC and a detective with the police Intelligence Unit, had invited Phil Black, director of security of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa (the Scotts-dale resort at which the ALEC conference was held), to attend at least one of these meetings. Black was the de facto head of ALEC's private security detail in Arizona (a security detail that was largely comprised of off-duty Phoenix police officers earning thirty-five dollars per hour). Records indicate that Rohme had been a regular recipient of intelligence provided by Saul and was the chief point of ACTIC/HDB contact with both ALEC personnel and other private entities working on behalf of ALECâincluding Mark Davis, head of corporate security for then-ALEC member corporation Bayer HealthCare.
In preparation for the May 22 Rothschild interview,
Democracy Now!
requested comment from PPD Public Information Officer (PIO) Trent Crump on a number of the report's findings. Crump declined to be interviewed on the show, but did respond to a number of questions submitted in writing by the show.
One question posed to Crump asked whether Phoenix “law enforcement infiltrate[d] Occupy meetings,” and if they had, why?
In response, Crump wrote: “Infiltrate? no, attend open meetings, yes.” [sic]
Democracy Now!,
relaying Crump's response, read this nonsense on television. Given the fact that earlier that day of May 22, the Face-book page utilized by “Saul DeLara” had been removed from Face-book, I thought this response on Crump's part was very interesting, especially since Crump had been unable to discuss the specifics of Saul's activity with me on several past occasions. On May 23, I wrote to Crump with a few follow-up questions.
First I asked how Crump would define the practice of “infiltration.” The second question was as follows:
From what I've gathered, a PPD Major Offender Bureau (PP-DMOB) undercover officer named Saul (most likely then-PPDMOB undercover detective Saul Ayala) posed as an activist, or person interested in becoming involved in activism, under the assumed name of “Saul DeLara.” This individual presented a false identity to activists he approached and attempted to befriend, or otherwise gain the confidence of. Specifically, according to the accounts of activists who interacted with this officer, Saul reportedly stated that he was a homeless Mexican national who had just been released from prison and who had family/friends active in activism/anarchist groups in Mexico. Some activist accounts state that this activity on the part of this undercover officer began as early as July 2011.
Evidence of the undercover officer's deliberate use of a false identity in order to gain the confidence of activists is contained on a Facebook page made by this undercover officer to support this false identity. Further supportive of the assertion that this undercover officer used this false identity to gain the trust/friendship of activists is the fact that this Facebook page was used to gather “friends.” Interestingly enough, the page in question was removed from Facebook yesterday.
I have reconstituted the page from screenshots taken in November 2012 here (for reference:
http://dbapress.com/
source-materials-archive/dissent-or-terror-source-materials-archive/saul-delara-facebook-page). Furthermore, through the months of October and November 2011, this undercover officer did not merely attend open meetings held by activists, but alsoâutilizing his deliberately established false personaâregularly “hung out” with specific individuals in Cesar Chavez Plaza for the express purpose of intelligence gathering. Records indicate that the purpose of this undercover officer's attendance at meetings, as well as his days spent in Cesar Chavez Plaza “hanging out” with specific individuals, was to gather intelligence. This intelligence was delivered to then-PPDMOB Career Criminal Squad Sgt. Tom Van Dorn. Van Dorn would then pass this intelligence along to other personnel, including those employed at PPD Bureau of Homeland Defense, PPD Community Relations Bureau, other personnel engaged at ACTIC. . . .
While other records, namely various records associated with [Occupy Phoenix protest] Incident Action Plans, do reflect the more passive use of undercover officers through the placement of such plainclothes officers in activist marches, it seems to me that there is a much greater depth to the ac-tivities carried out by this PPDMOB undercover officer. How would this above-detailed activity compare/contrast with your definition of “infiltrate”?
Rather than supporting the claim he made for a
Democracy Now!
national audienceâthat PPD had not “infiltrated” activist groups, but had simply “attended open meetings”âCrump responded to my line of questioning with the following:
Beau, I am not a dictionary so I do not need to define it. This was your choice of words not mine and maybe that is why we differ. In fact, I believe I read another version in your article, something to the effect of, “Dispatched an undercover to attend activist planning meetings.” If I were asked what we did in this case I would say, we used lawful techniques to gather information.
So there you have it: because, in one instance, I did not explicitly use the word “infiltrate” in describing the activities of this undercover detective, and because Crump is “not a dictionary,” the Phoenix Police Department public information officer thinks he has
carte blanche
to twist his response to a simple question, delivered to a nationwide audience, to the point of mendacityâwhile, on the same day, someone attempted to scrub the Internet of evidence of PPD's infiltration of Phoenix activist groups by deleting the Facebook profile dedicated to the false persona of the undercover detective who, without a doubt, infiltrated the Phoenix activist community.
This is the amount of respect these public servants have for the public.
BEAU HODAI
is the author of
Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.
The report was published jointly by the Center for Media and Democracy and DBA Press. Hodai is a regular contributor to the Center for Media and Democracy and is publisher of DBA Press.
STOP PATRIARCHY: SOCIAL JUSTICE CONFERENCE USES
POLICE AND THREAT OF ARREST TO SUPPRESS AND
CENSOR ANTIPORN VIEWS
Sunsara Taylor
On April 12, 2013, eight members of End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women (
StopPatriarchy.org
) were evicted, under threat of arrest, from the annual conference “From Abortion Rights to Social Justice, Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom,” sponsored by Hampshire College's program for Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP).
Our alleged crime? Peacefully advocating antipornography and anti-sex industry views at our own officially registered organizational
table.
According to Mia Sullivan, director of CLPP, our political opposition to the sex industry had made a few pro-porn conference-goers feel that the conference was no longer a “safe space.”
However, just this single, uninvestigated complaint is all it took for Ms. Sullivan to bring police and insist that we leave immediately or be arrested for trespassing. And, to be very clear: the police were with Ms. Sullivan from the very first time she or anyone else from CLPP approached us.
This outrageous act of political suppression is a dangerous escalation in an overall growing trend toward a pro-porn, pro-”sex work” hegemony within academia as well as large sections of the so-called “women's movement.” Not only is there an increasing embrace of pornography and the sex industry, but critiques focusing on the violence and degradation, the dehumanization and commodification of women's bodies and destruction of millions upon millions of real women's and young girls' lives through these industries is being shut down as “beyond the pale”âand in this case, even criminal.
Reversing this growing political suppression is essential. It is always wrong to call in agents of the highly oppressive and reactionary state to suppress the political views of fighters for liberation. It is also critical to women everywhere that the debate over, and opposition to, the truly monstrous crimes against women in the global sex industry deepen and spread.
What Exactly Happened at Our Table that Merited the Police?
A group of vociferous pro-porn people approached our table to argue in favor of porn and the sex industry, citing their personal experiences with the “sex industry,” with sexual violence, and with bondage, domination, and sadomasochism (BDSM). As we are not in favor of intruding into people's consensual sexual behavior, we argued the larger point: sexuality is not formed for anyone in a vacuum. In a world that is saturated with violence against women, a world that sexualizes degradation and humiliation, it is not surprising that those ideas get reflected in people's genuinely felt sexual desires, including by victims of sexual violence.
But, the “right” to market yourself as a sexual commodity has no meaning outside of a world that gives rise to the idea of women's bodies as commodities, as things to be used, tortured, degraded, and hurt for the sexual pleasure of men. And in that kind of world, this
real world is littered with the bodies of millions of women and very young girls who have been kidnapped, pimped, beaten, tortured, sold by starving families, drugged and tricked, and repeatedly raped and sold and then discarded as nothing more than unthinking flesh.
While this debate was passionate, we were calm, substantive and
principled.
We repeatedly refocused things on the need to look at all these phenomena from the vantage of the liberation of women, not from one's own narrow experience, and on the possibility and necessity of opening up space for truly liberating personal and sexual relations, based on equality, mutual respect, and a shared desire. We also drew attention to our call to action, which explicitly states that we are not seeking to enact laws to ban pornography, and that we oppose the criminalization of women in the sex industry; rather, we are challenging individuals to reject this culture of degradation and commodification of women.