Occupy Greensboro to discuss police surveillance

Occupy Greensboro is calling for a "general assembly" meeting to discuss "police surveillance and Greensboro official actions against peaceful protest." The meeting will start will public interest lawyer Lewis Pitts' statement at the last Greensboro City Council meeting "about suspected police forgeries of city council emails," according to an announcement sent out over the Peace & Justice Network listserve. The general assembly meeting will be held March 24 from 4 - 6 p.m. at Glenwood Coffee & Books (1310 Glenwood Street). 

It's been a month and a half since my cover story on police surveillance of activists in Greensboro, which led to several follow up articles in subsequent weeks. We don't normally link to other news sources (and we did practically all of the reporting on this issue) but Joe Gamm at the News & Record had an interesting blog post about surveillance soon after.  If anyone is interested in Pitts' comments to council, watch the Feb. 19 video here (during the speakers from the floor portion towards the beginning). 

Documents on police surveillance, Abuzuaiter now public

YES! Weekly is making numerous documents connected to today's article on Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter's correspondence with police available to the public, as well as a few key e-mails about police surveillance. We redacted phone numbers out of respect for privacy.

Read the files on Abuzuaiter here, including the e-mails Abuzuaiter claimed she did not send. The councilwoman denied all correspondence with Detective Rob Finch, and also said she never communicated with Capt. John Wolfe about the Beloved Community Center or Latin Kings. Another e-mail between Wolfe and Abuzuaiter was accidentally left off of the file. The two pages that are blank except for e-mail attachments contain images of planned protest maps in Charlotte, referenced in today's article. 

In a guest piece in Saturday's News & Record, the police chief, city attorney and city manager claimed a restraining order the city filed against YES! Weekly was aimed at preventing the release of intelligence that could expose an informant to serious danger. 

"The city acted appropriately when it learned that criminal intelligence information was inadvertently released to the media," they wrote. "It believed that publishing intelligence information, including informant information, created immediate risk of serious injury or death."

Here are the other files we received that identifies a confidential informant. Due to a technical error, this e-mail was omitted from the file:

Only one person was named (with a full name and e-mail address that we have redacted here) and this is the full extent of the documents involving that individual that we have. In another e-mail, Finch referred to this informant as a "snitch." Is the city's claim referring to this handful of files, or to the more extensive information included in the public-information request on Abuzuaiter? What credible information is the alleged "immediate risk" based on?

Miller also told the News & Record that there wasn't an undercover officer posing as part of Occupy Greensboro. We had technical difficulties with this document too but have included a screen shot below. Click to enlarge and read where Finch wrote (at the bottom) that he was in an Occupy meeting. Miller forwarded the message (at the top) to the Secret Service because President Obama would be in town, and he commented about Finch's role. 

We've also included a few other files of interest from the police surveillance article. 

DOCUMENT: Read city's complaint to stop YES! Weekly distribution

YES! Weekly just received the complaint the city filed Jan. 29 to try and prevent us from publishing information the city gave us in several public-records requests. You can read it in its entirety here. Not only did they want to stop us from distributing it, but they wanted us to pay their attorney fees for filing the temporary restraining order against us.

The most glaring error in the complaint: Wombo3 LLC, the entity named in the complaint, is not connected to YES! Weekly. Publisher Charles Womack confirmed that Wombo3 LLC is a separate business venture (in a different industry altogether) and that the paper is run under Womack Newspapers Inc.

Some smaller errors: The complaint states that the information was provided to the paper on Dec. 7, when the requests were actually turned over periodically from October 2012 through Jan, 23, 2013. The "HIVE" request has still not been provided to us, and the "Downtown Greensboro" search was for a separate article. One request should read "mkay5507@gmail.com" and not "mk5507@gmail" — an e-mail address of Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter.

The judge denied the city's request but we don't have a copy of his denial yet. The city was most likely shot down because the issue of prior restraint has been thoroughly adjudicated after a 1971 Supreme Court ruling in the case New York Times vs. the United States, commonly known as the "Pentagon Papers" case. Read more about this issue in the Feb. 6 issue of YES! Weekly.

We also now have copies of their explanation for why the hearing was ex parte — meaning without anyone present representing the paper and without notifying us of the hearing — which boiled down to a lack of time (they filed the request Tuesday night and we distribute on Wednesday mornings) and because they asserted we would act to publish the information immediately if we knew they were trying to stop us from doing so.

Judge rejects city request to stop YES! Weekly distribution

The City of Greensboro attempted — and failed — to obtain a temporary restraining order against YES! Weekly on Tuesday evening to stop the distribution of information it says was accidentally given to the paper in public-information requests. City Attorney Mujeeb Shah-Khan confirmed this afternoon that Judge Ronald E. Spivey rejected the city's request filed in Guilford County Superior Court on Jan. 29 after 5 p.m. 

The city found out that we were going to publish information — our cover story about police surveillance of activists — that the city now says should not have been released. Shah-Khan said the city sought the restraining order to prevent the dissemination of information that was not public record but was criminal intelligence, even though it was released through public records requests filed with the city's public information office.

"We found out late Tuesday that information had been provided that would be the subject of a story… information that is protected from distribution under North Carolina law," Shah-Khan said. "We felt it was the appropriate thing to do at that time. We respect the decision made by the judge."

The hearing was ex-parte, meaning only the city was present, and  YES! Weekly didn't become aware of the city's attempt until sources contacted the paper Wednesday evening. 

Shah-Khan said he made the decision to request a restraining order in conjunction with Police Attorney Jim Clark. He said Chief Ken Miller was aware that confidential information.

"I can say with certainty that no council member was involved in the discussion or decision to pursue a restraining order," he wrote in an e-mail.

"The final decision was mine," Shah-Khan said. "The police attorney and I worked on that and we felt it was the appropriate way to go. The buck stops with me. I don’t tell the chief how to do police work and the chief doesn’t tell me how to do my job either. The chief was part of the group that had information as to what we’re looking at."

Shah-Khan would not comment on whether the action was necessary in retrospect, but said there hadn't been a meeting to assess whether the city made the right call. 

"This is a rare situation and I don’t recall if the city has done this on any other cases [with the media]," Shah-Khan said. "It’s criminal intelligence information. It talked about a confidential informant, at least according to your story."

Shah-Khan said if they could find information about whether the city has ever requested a temporary restraining order against a media outlet he would notify YES! Weekly. So what's next?

"There is no additional legal challenge," Shah Khan said. "You’ve published the story and we’ll move on from there."

[The original post was edited to reflect a clarification by City Attorney Mujeeb Shah-Khan about the role of city council members. Shah-Khan was originally quoted as saying he "doesn't recall" if council members were involved but he sent an e-mail after reading the blog post to clarify that none participated in the deicision.]

Breaking: photo of surveillance officers now available

I asked the City of Greensboro to supply photos of Officers Steven Kory Flowers (left) and Rob Finch (right) to go along with my article about local police surveillance of activists.

In the past the city obliged, but after receiving no response and running the story anyway, one of my sources sent me a link to an article by the Southern Poverty Law Center about Flowers and Finch's work around "sovereign citizens."

The duo worked together gathering criminal intelligence on an array of "subversive" elements in the area and state, coordinating with other law enforcement agencies across the country to track, monitor and build files on everythinig from white supremacists to Occupy Greensboro. Finch, pictured right, actually infiltrated Occupy Greensboro, but you can read more about both officers and their work in this week's cover story.

This photo was taken by Jennifer Warbug and was posted with the SPLC article online. The interview is pretty interesting too.

Under surveillance: the NAACP and working with other agencies

This week's cover story about Greensboro police surveillance of activists is long, so long in fact that we had to cut two entire sections out to make it fit. Here they are in full:

NAACP

The civil rights organization has worked closely with the Beloved Community Center and Latin King leader Jorge Cornell over the years, but a request on the NAACP turned up a minimal amount of criminal intelligence.

One of the few mentions came from former Captain Charles Cherry, who alleged that, “Councilman Matheny in a August 23, 2010 e-mail directed the GPD to look for ways to charge NAACP members, because the citizens complained to Mr. Matheny.” Cherry, who says he was fired from the department for helping officers file complaints of discrimination, also claimed in the same message that Chief Miller intimidated an NAACP member.

Most of the e-mails pertaining to the group surrounded the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade that the organization coordinates. A 2007 police parade assignment document names four officers, including JR Robinson who appears on other intelligence reports and future gang-squad officer Ernest Cuthbertson.

The team was assigned to the parade route and surrounding area, aiming to “monitor activity and relay intel to [Incident Commander].” The following year the intelligence team for the parade was smaller, consisting of Richey, Flowers and Robinson, but had an identical assignment.

Cuthbertson was later the team leader for the “event response/arrest team” at a June 11, 2011 NAACP rally against reopening the White Street landfill. The team included six other officers, including gang unit officer Roman Watkins who regularly clashed with the Latin Kings.

Finch alerted other officers that the NAACP was planning a march to address the police department, landfill and other issues in May 2011 and that state NAACP President William Barber would be there.

“We’ll have the source in there so we don’t necessarily have to cover it,” he wrote on May 25, but didn’t give more details about he source. When asked about possible overlap with other groups, Finch said, “I know that Nelson Johnson and the Latin Kings will be at a few of the anarchist events. I’m not sure that Barber would want to align himself with the anarchists but I guess anything is possible.”

Sharing information

Part of Finch and Flowers’ regular duties required them to coordinate with other agencies. Officers in other departments who had attended Finch and Flowers’ training regularly requested the information, and the two spent time helping other agencies with intelligence.

Finch and Flowers forwarded information about demonstrations, like a Farm Labor Organizing Committee protest on May 6, 2011, to other departments and also met with other agencies to share intelligence. Reports show regular correspondence and meetings, especially between officers in major North Carolina municipalities, about various “subversive” tendencies.

E-mails show that Greensboro police coordinated and discussed responses to Occupy with police departments around the country, such as an Albany, NY officer asking for advice on dealing with occupations, and a Richmond, Va. officer cautioning against growing anarchist involvement. Finch forwarded an e-mail with the agenda for a statewide Occupy meeting, highlighting three workshops about the Democratic National Convention (or DNC), anarchism and homeland security.

In mid-May, 2011, the two helped Goldsboro police with “a large number of Pagans coming to town,” a few days later helping Mayodan police with intelligence on an Aryan Brotherhood member and Kentucky State Police about a Klan and National Socialist Movement member.

The department received regular updates on “extremist” activity throughout the country and world, from alleged anarchist riots in Greece to changing outlaw motorcycle gang allegiances. Bulletins, like one from the FBI on Feb. 21, 2012 entitled “Methods used by anarchist extremists while attempting to disrupt a political event,” were a regular occurrence.

Greensboro police were invited to a free training called the “Domestic Extremism Symposium” on June 29, 2012 in Illinois hosted by the Gang Professionals Network. It is unclear if any officers attended the event, which covered several of Finch and Flowers’ regular targets as well as lone offenders, black separatists and American Islamic and Puerto Rican extremists.

An FBI report on anarchist graffiti in Charlotte leading up to the DNC was forwarded to campus security throughout the state — including GTCC, Forsyth Technical Community College, Guilford College and UNCG — on March 30, 2012 and included a request for photos and notification of any “suspicious graffiti on your campus.”

Milton Harris with the Joint Terrorism Task Force called to request any intelligence gathered during the NC Rising anarchist conference, which primarily consisted of various workshops. Finch and Flowers went to Charlotte Nov. 29, 2011 to meet with the FBI and Charlotte police because “they have a bunch of people that they need identified and want to go over the files we have on them” for anarchists and Occupy participants.

They worked with Oakland police to help identify “several of our NC anarchists, including two from Greensboro” who were among 400 people arrested in an Occupy Oakland march in late January 2011. The two also provided surveillance and assistance to Asheville police during court dates for alleged anarchists who were charged with property destruction in downtown Asheville on May 1, 2010.

“We’d be very glad to come to Asheville and assist you guys in any way [during the court case],” Flowers wrote on Dec. 15, 2010. “We conduct a great deal of covert surveillance and have identified numerous state players in the anarchist movement.”

Finch and Flowers were taken up on the offer, and went to take pictures of people and vehicles and identify people in court supporting the accused.

The oldest e-mail turned up in the search is about a call to action for “Insurrection Night” in June 2004. FBI special intelligence officer Gary Evers warned that website called for acts of vandalism at specific sites coinciding with the G-8 Summit in Georgia.

“It should be noted that the web page is signed by the ‘Southeast Anarchist Network’, which is based in Greensboro, however no specific acts of violence are known for Greensboro at this time,” Evers wrote.

Around the same time, Evers offered Greensboro police a 347-page anarchist manual and “other information concerning anarchists,” the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front on a disc.