Seattle Anti-LEIU Protest, 6/8/03

I’m writing this from the front lines of the recent anti-LEIU protest in Seattle, Washington. Actually, about ten miles from the front lines in a little town called Tukwila, Washington. Some of you, our loyal readers, may have heard about the protests, or rather, overheard a corporate news-sized sound byte on one of our local “Standing Up 4 You” television news stations. I’m here to give you the real shit, or at least the full feeling you get before you take the real shit. I was there and I was witness to the eventsâÂ?¦ Well, at least up to the point that the clichÃ?©d hell broke loose (I had to turn in some books to the library before they closed at 8 pm).
First of all, let me give you a little background about the LEIU and the purpose of the protest. According to the Seattle Independent Media web site (http://seattle.indymedia.org/), the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit is a loosely-associated group of law enforcement and intelligence officers, whose private network of affiliations allows information to be shared between agencies. It was created in 1956 by the California Department of Justice. It first included 26 law enforcement agencies from seven western states but now includes more than 250 agencies from the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, and Britain.
According to the organizers of the protest, “The [official] purpose of this organization, which is a voluntary confederation of police agencies, is to exchange information on organized crime and certain criminals.” The unofficial purpose was to establish a national criminal intelligence network independent of the FBI, whose agents frequently refused to share information with local law enforcement officers.
The original format of LEIU information was hundreds of 5 x 8″ cards. Each card listed, among other data, a subject’s name, alias, occupation, family members, vehicles, associates, arrests, and physical traits. A subject may be a person suspected of committing a crime; a person suspected of aiding those involved in a crime; or a person associated with a principal subject. Associates might include family members, business associates, or attorneys of the principal subject. This data has since been computerized, using federal funds. Given today’s fascist-patriotic climate, anyone disagreeing with the Bush Administration’s official policy is suspect.
Why should anyone care about this group? Well, for starters, the information is frequently wrong. The federal General Accounting Office found that only a small percent of the information on the LEIU cards could be completely documented. Auditors expressed concern that “the grantee has not yet effected either its promised verification of index information or its promised elimination of outdated and inaccurate data.” They don’t just monitor organized crime. Topics at the 1962 training meeting in San Francisco included “police intelligence units’ role in securing information concerning protest groups, demonstrations, and mob violence”. Representatives from the INS, the US Department of Labor, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and several military investigative units were present. A 1974 suit filed against the Chicago Police Department by the Alliance to End Repression revealed that LEIU files were kept “on a University of Washington professor; a teacher of the Republica of New Africa, a southern black separate movement; a member of the Black Panther party; a member of the Communist Party; and members of the American Indian Movement.” A 1979 investigation by the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners found that many LEIU subject cards had information on people “not apparently related to criminal activities.” “Among the subjects catalogued in LEIU files have been minority, labor and community organizers, many with no criminal records.” In 1991, investigative author Frank Donner’s book, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, documented political repression practiced by urban police. Donner described the LEIU as a private organization which served as a conduit for information and technology and may also have helped local departments evade restrictions on their intelligence gathering. A May 10, 1993 San Francisco Chronicle article revealed how local police secretly use the LEIU to preserve intelligence files that are supposed to be destroyed. In short, the LEIU is a private organization that takes advantage of its status as a private organization to pursue an agenda prohibited by the courts to government law enforcement agencies: domestic spying. Disagree with your government? You’re on the list. Who knows? Local law enforcement may even be keeping tabs on Blackboard writers (and readers) who profess too unacceptable a point of view (that is, non-fascist), all in the name of the War on Terrorism.

As is common with news coverage of popular protests like this, the message behind the protest was obscured behind the powerful images of police fighting with protesters. The purpose of the protest was simple. We were marching for an end to police spying, harassment, and intimidation; disbandment of the LEIU, repeal of the Patriot Act I, and an end to plans for Patriot Act II; civil liberties for immigrant communities and communities of color; and defense of free speech and the right to assemble.
The event was organized by LEIU Welcoming Committee, Not in Our Name (NION – Seattle), Hate Free Zone Campaign of Washington, People’s Coalition for Justice, No War Against Iraq Coalition (NWAIC), Organized Labor Against the War (OLAW), American Friends Service Committee, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Code Pink (Seattle), Radical Women (Seattle), Seattle Colombia Committee, IWW (Seattle), Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group, Federation of Northwest Anarchist-Communists (FNAC), Freedom Socialist Party, Green Party (Seattle), International Socialist Organization, and the Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN), all of whom, because they have chosen to speak out in disagreement with our government, are now suspect in the eyes of the very organization we seek to end.
Like any red-blooded, patriotic American, I get nervous when I see cops in riot gear with batons standing behind steel barriers staring at me when I exercise my rights as an American citizen to peaceably assemble and speak out about injustice in my country. And the Seattle police played the role of Enforcers well. Don’t get me wrong. I have family in law enforcement and I fully support our men and women in blue protecting you and I from the threats to our public safety. But, really folks, if the boys and girls in blue can’t tell the difference between citizens in a democratic society exercising the rights that our people have fought and died for from thugs who just want to cause trouble, then the fault lies with the police and not democracy.
I did see one gentleman place a horse-manure-stained American flag across the ground and encourage people to walk over it as the newly designated “parade route”, but he was a veteran, and I guess that earns him the right to such protest. Because our flag still represents something good and powerful to me, I couldn’t bring myself to march over it.
As with any postmodern political protest, a few party crashers showed up to antagonize the powers that be. There was a small group (maybe two dozen of the 400 or so estimated protesters) who seemed intent on annoying the police by tossing empty plastic soda bottles at the cops on bikes as they rode by. But the corporate news media seemed intent on portraying these attention-provoking youth as the mass of protesters. On the local news stations, I didn’t see the little elderly women who marched with signs and banners. I didn’t see the Vietnam Veterans who are speaking out against our government spitting on the freedoms they fought and bled for. I didn’t see the mothers, fathers, and grandparents marching with their children. Again typically, the corporate media followed its own “shock and awe” campaign by broadcasting only the most outrageous scenes. The Seattle Police, and many other Washington law enforcement agencies, saw a couple radicals doing naughty things like burning the American flag (which, by the way, is still a Constitutionally-protected form of political speech). Apparently, this was reason enough for the police to begin dousing the crowds with chemical weapons and ramming bicycles into people. No wonder the military can’t find any prohibited weapons in Iraq. They all seem to be stockpiled here in the good ol US of A. The Seattle Police is known for its strong-arm tactics against people who speak out against the actions of our government. Many people were shot with rubber bullets, tackled to the ground, and otherwise subjected to Nazi law enforcement tactics.
The bottom line is this, folks: don’t trust what you see in the corporate media. The latest, most deadly personification of Big Brother was born on 9/11. We can’t let the deaths of nearly 3000 human beings on our soil be the excuse to destroy the Constitution and the murder of people around the world in our name. An aggressive foreign policy begins with an aggressive domestic policy. Namaste.