Lawsuit alleges Oregon snooped on pipeline opponents

This story was originally published by Grinding and appears here as part of the Climate Table collaboration.

Tribal members and environmental advocates filed a lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Justice earlier this month for “illegal domestic espionage” through its Oregon TITAN Fusion Center, one of roughly 80 intelligence centers tasked with to monitor possible national terrorists.

“It is astonishing and disturbing to become the target of a well-resourced secret police solely because of my participation in peaceful demonstrations against a harmful fossil fuel pipeline on my ancestral lands,” Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, environmentalist and rights advocate indigenous lawyer, said in a Press release.

Farrell-Smith is a plaintiff in the case and a member of the Klamath tribe. She has protested against Jordan cove, a 229-mile long natural gas pipeline that would have traversed ancestral lands in Oregon. He has also created protest art and organized against a lithium mine in Nevada.

Other plaintiffs include Rowena Jackson, Francis Eatherington, and Sarah Westover. Jackson is also a member of the Klamath tribe, a protector of the water and works in the Administrative Office of the Klamath Tribes. Eatherington is president of the Oregon Women’s Land Trust, a nonprofit conservation organization. Westover was an organizer of the No LNG Exports Coalition, an alliance of groups opposed to the Jordan Cove pipeline.

According to the lawsuit, the “fusion centers” have little supervision and less is known about them. At least 3,000 state and federal employees They work in fusion centers where they monitor people who pose potential national terrorist threats. Using advice from the public, social media, public records, and government materials, the Oregon TITAN Fusion Center collects and shares data with “more than 170 local law enforcement agencies, dozens of federal and state intelligence centers, and an unknown number of public and private partner organizations ”, states the lawsuit.

After September 11, at least 80 fusion centers have been created to prevent future terrorist attacks, but a 2012 Senate investigation found they are ineffective and cost taxpayers $ 330 million a year. Originally created by the US Department of Homeland Security, the cost of funding them has largely shifted to the states. According to the lawsuit, the Oregon TITAN facility is managed through the Criminal Intelligence Division of the Oregon Department of Justice.

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The lawsuit, filed by the Surveillance Project at New York University School of Law, which partners with communities and law enforcement to promote accountability, claims that TITAN is illegally spying on environmental defenders who are not breaking the law. The Policing Project has also been involved in a case against Microsoft, siding with the company and its stance not to disclose data to law enforcement agencies, and a Ring audit, a video doorbell company that works with police departments across the country.

“None of the plaintiffs participates in or supports, nor has they participated in or supported, criminal activity that would merit the attention of the Oregon Department of Justice or that fell within the delegated powers of the Oregon Department of Justice,” the lawsuit states.

Jeff Rosenthal, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a press release that TITAN “has repeatedly abused its uncontrolled power over the law-abiding citizens of Oregon.” The lawsuit states that TITAN also used surveillance software to physically track the location of the Black Lives Matter protesters, using the information to create a threat report against the Oregon Department of Justice’s own civil rights director, as well as to create reports. on the Women’s March.

“There is no single Oregon law or regulation that gives the state Department of Justice the power to run a widespread spy agency,” Barry Friedman, law professor and founding director of the Policing Project, said in a press release. “That TITAN exists without any legislative authority violates the basic principles of democratic governance.”

In a statement, the Justice Department told Portland KATU, “We are reviewing the lawsuit and will respond in court, but in the initial review, many of the examples cited in the lawsuit occurred several years ago and have been addressed.”

The plaintiffs hope that the lawsuit will result in an end to TITAN’s surveillance activities.

“Civil rights and privacy advocates have been sounding the alarm about fusion centers for years,” Farhang Heydari, executive director of the Police Project, said in a statement. “But TITAN is one of the worst offenders.”