Civil libertarians are demanding that Denver pull police detectives from a federal anti-terrorism squad if they can’t be audited for compliance with the city’s “spy files” pact.
“Given the FBI’s policy of secrecy, the accountability that Denver promised … can be achieved only if Denver withdraws from the” Joint Terrorism Task Force, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado wrote Mayor John Hickenlooper and 13 Denver City Council members Wednesday.
The letter comes two years after the city settled a lawsuit protesting the Denver Police Department’s Intelligence Bureau spying on political activists. Under the so-called spy files settlement, police now are prohibited from such intelligence-gathering.
Since that deal, one of two Denver Intelligence Bureau detectives assigned to the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force was involved in a surveillance sweep with FBI agents last summer, questioning political activists about possible plans to disrupt the major political party conventions or the November election.
What the feds deemed as “pretext interviews” did not lead to any information about criminal activity, FBI documents show.
The ACLU argues that the sweep was aimed to intimidate the activists rather than garner information, and says Denver police broke the spy-files agreement by taking part.
Following FBI policy, the Hickenlooper administration has refused to allow its two JTTF detectives to be questioned by an outside auditor studying compliance with the legal settlement. The department therefore “has no way of actually knowing whether the two detectives are performing their duties in compliance with the policy,” an audit from October found.
City Attorney Cole Finegan would not comment specifically Wednesday on the ACLU’s call to yank the detectives from the task force. He said he plans to meet with Police Chief Gerry Whitman “to review the relationship with the FBI and determine what steps we can take.”
Portland recently pulled its detectives from the federal task force partly to comply with an Oregon law that, much like the spy-files agreement, prohibits police from gathering intelligence on peaceful protesters on the basis of their political views.
Denver City Council President Elbra Wedgeworth – who helped broker spy-files negotiations between the city and the ACLU – said a lack of oversight of Denver’s terrorism detectives “is something I’m concerned about and looking into.”
