Agents’ Charade Fooled Nobody

A swarm of media has descended on Coeur d’Alene. Again.

I was outside the Kootenai County Courthouse on Wednesday, and about a dozen photographers and reporters were milling around waiting for something to happen in the civil trial of Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler. The media horde seemed poised to give North Idaho a black eye. Again.

Now we’ve learned that better than half of the horde were federal agents poorly disguised as photojournalists. They got help from a well-intentioned local law officer who issued them press credentials.

Going undercover to gather information is nothing new. It is a clear violation of the separation between law enforcement and the press. But it doesn’t surprise me that this happened.

However, posing as a member of the press is different, because the press believes it answers to a higher calling. For many reasons, it is harder and harder to get people to trust the press today. If people don’t know whether they are talking to a real journalist or a federal agent, answering that higher calling will become even harder.

Journalists around the country will go into a lather over this incident. The trade press will thunder its disapproval. Eloquent stories will be written.

Meanwhile, the public will be watching. I think most people see a different set of circumstances. I think the public believes that if an agent poses as a news photographer and gets information that prevents a bombing, or an assassination, or leads to an arrest - that’s a good thing.

I believe that is what Kootenai County Sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger was thinking when he offered the feds press credentials. He probably assumed they’d been to spy school. If Wolfinger had known how phony these agents were going to seem, I bet he would have made a different choice. He has corrected his course and confiscated the credentials from the agents.

But the disconnect between the way the public perceives the work of the press and the way the press perceives its work is a continuing problem. That law enforcement agencies say they can’t trust the press, then turn around and impersonate the press, is ironic if not hypocritical. But those are not the most important issues here.

Law enforcement agencies gathering intelligence on extremist groups around the country either need to get good at the spy business, or get out. They continue to embarrass themselves, erode public confidence and fuel the fires of antigovernment zealots. This charade in front of the Kootenai County Courthouse leaves the impression that some federal agents have learned nothing at all from the disasters at Ruby Ridge and in Waco, Texas.

This photojournalist-impostor screw-up is particularly troubling for its amateurish execution and its potential impact on public opinion at such a crucial time.

Many of these Aryans have been photographed hundreds of times. The Aryans know what real, working photojournalists look like and how they act.

When key witnesses left the courthouse, the real photojournalists made pictures of them. The impostors stayed across the street.

The equipment the impostors carried looked brand new. The equipment of many working photojournalists looks like the equivalent of a 1972 Chevy Vega. Photographers and reporters for this newspaper spotted that immediately and knew the guys were phonies.

Once the impostors had been exposed, one of them tried to continue the charade the next day. He told some more lies. He chastised a newspaper photographer for endangering his safety.

The truth is, the man endangered his own safety by his own poor work. He raised the suspicions of Aryan Shaun Winkler by introducing himself with a name different than the name on his credential. Winkler spotted it immediately and the agent clumsily tried to cover up. Winkler remarked that the behavior of the man was weird, not like a real photographer.

The Aryans were on to the guy and they do not treat informants well. If the agent had continued his charade he could have found himself in jeopardy.

It is also true that this infiltration puts real working journalists at risk. If the Aryans begin to believe that photographers and reporters may be feds, the journalists could well become targets.

The impostors also tried to ply the media-savvy Aryans with free pictures and offered to take group pictures of the Aryans. Ever tried to get a free print or a group photograph from a real photojournalist? That’s actually quite funny. But there’s too much at stake right now to be laughing.

The working press knew the agents were phonies, the Aryans had the same suspicions and of course local law enforcement knew about the charade. Who did the agents think they were fooling? Only themselves, I think, and that is a problem.

This is a seminal moment in the history of the region. The bogeyman is on trial and one of the most skillful lawyers in the country is after his Aryan hide. There is a chance the region might begin to grow past its racist reputation.

We need the judicial system to do its very best work. We need the jury to focus on the facts and do its very best work. We need the press to provide the most balanced and fair report possible under the restrictions imposed by Judge Charles Hosack and the Kootenai County commissioners.

What we don’t need is another ham-handed act by bungling federal agents. Again. It only serves up another reason why the people in this region can’t trust the government. Again.