Posted on 07/27/2006 9:08:37 PM PDT by TFFKAMM
Two Oakland police officers working undercover at an anti-war protest in May 2003 got themselves elected to leadership positions in an effort to influence the demonstration, documents released Thursday show.
The department assigned the officers to join activists protesting the U.S. war in Iraq and the tactics that police had used at a demonstration a month earlier, a police official said last year in a sworn deposition.
At the first demonstration, police fired nonlethal bullets and bean bags at demonstrators who blocked the Port of Oakland's entrance in a protest against two shipping companies they said were helping the war effort. Dozens of activists and longshoremen on their way to work suffered injuries ranging from welts to broken bones and have won nearly $2 million in legal settlements from the city.
The extent of the officers' involvement in the subsequent march May 12, 2003, led by Direct Action to Stop the War and others, is unclear. But in a deposition related to a lawsuit filed by protesters, Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go."
It was revealed later that the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center, which was established by the state attorney general's office to help local police agencies fight terrorism, had posted an alert about the April protest. Oakland police had also monitored online postings by the longshoremen's union regarding its opposition to the war.
The documents showing that police subsequently tried to influence a demonstration were released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union, as part of a report criticizing government surveillance of political activists since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001....
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Ah, come on. Oakland? Can't they do better with the headline?
How about: JERRY BROWN SPIES ON HIS OLD COMRADES
Here's another related thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1673548/posts
CA: ACLU catalogs government surveillance of political activities
AP on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 7/27/06 | Scott Lindlaw - ap
Posted on 07/27/2006 8:04:32 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
I can understand infiltrating wacky moonbats but why accept a leadership position? Just lay low!
Why would the protesters care if they were infiltrated by cops? Did they have something to hide? Were they planning something illegal?
and, afterall, THEY elected the cops to be leaders, so it's not like their free will was violated or anything
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