PORTLAND TAKES LEAD IN
PROTECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES

Rebuke of Ashcroft's "War on Terrorism" Prompts Police to Respond to Criticism

COMMUNITY FORCED CITY'S HAND
IN INTERVIEW EPISODE

By now, the national flap over Portland's decision not to participate in FBI interviews of Middle Eastern men is long over. Few sources, however, paid attention to one of the most significant reasons for that decision.

In late November 2001, the City Attorney issued an opinion that some of the questions the Feds wanted to ask non-citizens couldn't be asked by Oregon police officers. The basis for the decision was ORS 181.575, which prohibits gathering information on people who are not the object of a criminal investigation.

The legal opinion was straightforward and supported by most legal experts in Oregon. But the Police Bureau's decision to accept that opinion in the face of intense national scrutiny had more to do with the organizing and agitation around the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force (PJTTF) one month earlier.

As we reported in PPR #25, City Council narrowly approved the renewal of the PJTTF in the face of sustained public testimony against the Task Force. At the time of the renewal, both Chief Kroeker and the Mayor made promises ensuring that the PJTTF would not target non- criminal suspects for investigation and surveillance. In explaining Portland's refusal to participate in the interviews, Kroeker indicated on national television that he had made a promise to the community not to violate ORS 181.575.

In a time when people feel unsure of their own power to act politically, this series of events serves to remind us all of the possibilities when folks work together and stand up to unaccountable power.

INVENTING TERRORIST THREATS

One byproduct of the community's success, however, is an effort by the Portland Police to clear their name. (Officer Rafe Cancio was so worried about national perception, he told the Oregonian [November 29] that he feared that when visiting New York, officers there would refuse to buy him a beer when they heard he was from Oregon.)

In addition, area prosecutors and politicians have cravenly manipulated public fear of terrorism for their own cynical ends since September 11.

In December, authorities indicted a Beaverton man who had been jailed since October. Though the man, Ali Khaled Steitiye, was indicted on relatively routine charges concerning illegal weapons possession (and was later charged with immigration violations), prosecutors emphasized that he emigrated from Lebanon and claimed that he once trained with Hamas (Oregonian, December 12).

Chief Kroeker exploited the arrest to trumpet the Bureau's commitment to the fight against terrorism, though Steitiye was not being charged with any kind of terrorist activity and was not conclusively linked to any terrorist organization.

Steitiye's family was evicted and received threatening phone calls following the publicity around his indictment (KGW.com, January 11). His trial is set for May 7.

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