Army won’t release spying probe results

SEATTLE – The Army is still refusing to release the results of its investigation into spying on anti-war activists by a civilian intelligence specialist at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle.

Officials released more than 100 pages of records this week to the Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, mostly with names redacted. The Army withheld the results and recommendations made by an investigating officer, citing law enforcement and privacy exemptions.

Col. John Wells of the Army’s Litigation Division noted an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit brought by the activists and the possibility of criminal charges against Army employees.

He said release of the results could impair the rights of those involved to fair trials or disciplinary proceedings.

The documents outline the scope of the inquiry, which was completed in mid-2009 and then reopened this year to determine whether military legal advisors were given complete and accurate information about the protest group’s infiltration.

A document dated March 2, 2009, shows that even before the activists were aware of the mole’s true identity, senior officials at the base were concerned about bad publicity “should mainstream media decide to report U.S. ‘spying’ on protesters.” That document, known as a point paper, also showed they were upset that local agencies, including the city of Tacoma, had turned over certain records to activists in response to a public disclosure request.

The military said city officials’ release of the records put future information-sharing at risk because it could not “depend on them to comply” with the Army’s guidelines for such requests, the document said. It added that the base’s leadership should “express their displeasure with their Tacoma counterparts (for) the mishandling” of the request.

It wasn’t until three months later that the anti-war activists with a group called Olympia Port Militarization Resistance put it together that the administrator of their e-mail list-serve, whom they knew as John Jacob, was actually John Jacob Towery, then an employee of the Force Protection Division at Lewis-McChord.

The Reconstruction-era Posse Comitatus Act prohibits Army personnel from directly engaging in domestic law enforcement.

“If Fort Lewis knew in March that he was exposed and still had him acting in concert with us, that raises a lot of questions,” said Drew Hendricks, a member of the group.

The U.S. attorney in Seattle, Jenny Durkan, filed documents Thursday in the federal lawsuit that suggest Towery may not have had the blessing of his supervisors for some of his actions. The document is a legal step that makes the U.S. government liable for any violations of state law by federal workers acting within the scope of their employment.

Durkan wrote that one defendant in the lawsuit, Towery’s boss, Thomas Rudd, was acting in the scope of his employment at all times related to the activists’ charges. But she said that Towery was acting in the scope of his employment only “when on duty or when expressly authorized.”

The Army division that employed him, Force Protection Division, includes civilian and military workers who support law enforcement and security operations to ensure the security of Fort Lewis personnel.

Towery had been attending the group’s meetings for two years, and information he collected about the protesters appears to have been passed to his superiors on base as well as local law enforcement, documents released to the AP show.

The Army launched its investigation in July 2009, after members of the group complained. The investigating officer’s marching orders said the inquiry should focus on Towery’s actions.