By ANDREA MEYER

This fall the Portland City Council once again renewed its participation in the Portland/FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (PJTTF). And once again we were there opposing it. We object to the failure of the City to provide any oversight of the Portland police officers participating in the task force. Portland officers who participate in the task force come from the police bureau’s Criminal Intelligence Unit. That’s the same unit that has spied on us and many other lawful groups over the years. In compliance with ORS 181.575, that prohibits the police from collecting and maintaining files on people’s political, religious or associational activity, as well as in response to legal action, the City now requires a City Attorney to review and purge all files that violate this law. However by turning over CIU offices to the FBI controlled Terrorism Task Force, that oversight of the officers’ activities and their files is eliminated. And we all know that the FBI has an even worse track record than Portland when it comes to spying on those engaged in lawful activity.

We have urged Council to make independent oversight a pre-requisite of city involvement in the PJTTF. We want the City to stay at arms-length from the FBI because Attorney General John Ashcroft has greatly weakened the rules that used to prohibit spying on the political and religious activities of individuals and organizations.

For the first time, after the past years of urging oversight, City officials disclosed that newly-appointed FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Jordan has now offered to help obtain federal security clearances for both Chief Foxworth and Mayor Katz. The Mayor asked if such clearance could be extended to the City Attorney and Jordan stated it would not be allowed. Nevertheless Mayor Katz said she would push to get security clearance for the City Attorney to help ensure that Portland officers on the PJTTF are complying with Oregon law. Because there is no guarantee that even Mayor Katz will receive security clearance, the sentiment of the majority of the Council was to get a progress report on oversight of the JTTF after the first of the year. The ACLU and other organizations will continue to press for meaningful, independent oversight of the PJTTF.