were
targeting.
Sherriff's Department had been spying on a Great Plains Tar Sands
Resistance training camp
that took place from March 18 to March 22 and which
brought together local landowners,
Indigenous communities, and environmental
groups opposed to the pipeline.
On the morning of March 22 activists had planned to block the gates at the
company’s strategic oil reserves in Cushing, Oklahoma as part of the larger
protest movement against TransCanada’s tar sands pipeline. But when they showed
up in the early morning hours and began unloading equipment from their vehicles
they were confronted by police officers. Stefan Warner, an organizer with Great
Plains Tar Sands Resistance, says some of the vehicles en route to the protest
site were pulled over even before they had reached Cushing. He estimates that
roughly 50 people would have participated— either risking arrest or providing
support. The act of nonviolent civil disobedience, weeks in the planning, was
called off.
“For a small sleepy Oklahoma town to be saturated with police officers on a
pre-dawn weekday leaves only one reasonable conclusion,” says Ron Seifert, an
organizer with an affiliated group called Tar Sands Blockade. “They were there
on purpose, expecting something to happen.”
Seifert is exactly right. According to documents obtained by
Earth Island
Journal, investigators from the Bryan County Sherriff’s Department had been
spying on a Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance training camp that took place from
March 18 to March 22 and which brought together local landowners, Indigenous
communities, and environmental groups opposed to the pipeline.
An excerpt from an official report on the "Undercover
Investigation into the GPTSR Training Camp" indicates that at least two
law
enforcement officers from the Bryan County Sherriff’s Department
infiltrated the training camp and drafted a detailed report about
the
upcoming protest, internal strategy, and the character of the protesters
themselves.
At least two law enforcement officers infiltrated the training camp and
drafted a detailed report about the upcoming protest, internal strategy, and the
character of the protesters themselves. The undercover investigator who wrote
the report put the tar sands opponents into five different groups: eco-activists
(who “truly wanted to live off the grid”); Occupy members; Native American
activists (“who blamed all forms of government for the poor state of being that
most American Indians are living in”); Anarchists (“many wore upside down
American flags”); and locals from Oklahoma (who “had concerns about the pipeline
harming the community”).
The undercover agent’s report was obtained by Douglas Parr, an Oklahoma
attorney who represented three activists (all lifelong Oklahomans) who were
arrested in mid April for blockading a tar sands pipeline construction site.
“During the discovery in the Bryan county cases we received material indicating
that there had been infiltration of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance camp
by police agents,” Parr says. At least one of the undercover investigators
attended an “action planning” meeting during which everyone was asked to put
their cell phones or other electronic devices into a green bucket for security
reasons. The investigator goes on to explain that he was able to obtain
sensitive information regarding the location of the upcoming Cushing protest,
which would mark the culmination of the week of training. “This investigator was
able to obtain an approximate location based off a question that he asked to the
person in charge of media,” he wrote. He then wryly notes that, “It did not
appear…that our phones had been tampered with.”
(The memo also states that organizers at the meeting went to great lengths
not to give police any cause to disrupt the gathering. The investigator writes:
“We were repeatedly told this was a substance free camp. No drug or alcohol use
would be permitted on the premises and always ask permission before touching
anyone. Investigators were told that we did not need to give the police any
reason to enter the camp.” They were also given a pamphlet that instructed any
agent of TransCanada, the FBI, or other law enforcement agency to immediately
notify the event organizers.)
The infiltration of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance action camp and
pre-emption of the Cushing protest is part of a larger pattern of government
surveillance of tar sands protesters. According to other documents obtained by
Earth Island Journal under an Open Records Act request, Department of
Homeland Security staff has been keeping close tabs on pipeline opponents — and
routinely sharing that information with TransCanada, and vice versa.
In March TransCanada gave a briefing on corporate security to a Criminal
Intelligence Analyst with the Oklahoma Information Fusion Center, the state
level branch of Homeland Security. The conversation took place just as the
action camp was getting underway. The following day, Diane Hogue, the Center’s
Intelligence Analyst, asked TransCanada to review and comment on the agency’s
classified situational awareness bulletin. Michael Nagina, Corporate Security
Advisor for TransCanada, made two small suggestions and wrote, “With the above
changes I am comfortable with the content.”
Then, in an email to TransCanada on March 19 (the second day of the action
camp) Hogue seems to refer to the undercover investigation taking place. “Our
folks in the area say there are between 120-150 participants,” Hogue wrote in an
email to Nagina. (The Oklahoma Information Fusion Center declined to comment for
this story.)
It is unclear if the information gathered at the training camp was shared
directly with TransCanada. However, the company was given access to the Fusion
Center’s situational awareness bulletin just a few days before the Cushing
action was scheduled to take place.
In an emailed statement, TransCanada spokesperson Shawn Howard did not
directly address the Tar Sands Resistance training camp. Howard described law
enforcement as being interested in what the company has done to prepare for
activities designed to “slow approval or construction” of the pipeline project.
“When we are asked to share what we have learned or are prepared for, we are
there to share our experience – not direct law enforcement,” he wrote.
At least one of the investigators seemed to have gained
the trust of the direct action activists.
The evidence of heightened cooperation between TransCanada and law
enforcement agencies in Oklahoma and Texas comes just over a month after it was
revealed
that the company had given a PowerPoint presentation on corporate security to
the FBI and law enforcement officials in Nebraska. TransCanada also held an
“interactive session” with law enforcement in Oklahoma City about the company’s
security strategy in early 2012. In their PowerPoint presentation, TransCanada
employees suggested that district attorneys should explore “state or federal
anti-terrorism laws” in prosecuting activists. They also included profiles of
key organizers and a list of activists previously arrested for acts of
nonviolent civil disobedience in Texas and Oklahoma. In addition to
TransCanada’s presentation, a representative of Nebraska’s Homeland Security
Fusion Center briefed attendees on an “intelligence sharing role/plan relevant
to the pipeline project.” This is likely related to the Homeland Security
Information Sharing Network, which provides public and private sector partners
as well as law enforcement access to sensitive information.
The earlier cache of documents, first released to the press by Bold Nebraska,
an environmental organization opposed to the pipeline, shows that TransCanada
has established close ties with state and federal law enforcement agencies along
the proposed pipeline route. For example, in an exchange with FBI agents in
South Dakota, TransCanada’s Corporate Security Advisor, Michael Nagina, jokes
that, “I can be the cure for insomnia so sure hope you can still attend!”
Although they were unable to make the Nebraska meeting, one of the agents
responded, “Assuming approval of the pipeline, we would like to get together to
discuss a timeline for installation through our territory.”
The new documents also provide an interesting glimpse into the revolving door
between state law enforcement agencies and the private sector, especially in
areas where fracking and pipeline construction have become big business. One of
the individuals providing information to the Texas Department of Homeland
Security’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division is currently the Security
Manager at Anadarko Petroleum, one of the world’s largest independent oil and
natural gas exploration and production companies. In 2011, at a natural gas
industry stakeholder relations conference, a spokesperson for Anadarko compared
the anti-drilling movement to an “insurgency” and suggested that attendees
download the US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual.
The infiltration of the Great Plains Tar Sands
Resistance action camp and pre-emption of the
Cushing protest is part of a
larger pattern of government surveillance of tar sands protesters.
LC Wilson, the Anadarko Security Manager shown by the documents to be
providing information to the Texas Fusion Center, is more than just a friend of
law enforcement. From 2009 to 2011 he served as Regional Commander of the Texas
Department of Public Safety, which oversees law enforcement statewide. Wilson
began his career with the Department of Public Safety in 1979 and was named a
Texas Ranger — an elite law enforcement unit — in 1988, eventually working his
way up to Assistant Chief. Such connections would be of great value to a
corporation like Anadarko, which has invested heavily in security
operations.
In an email to Litto Paul Bacas, a Critical Infrastructure Planner (and
former intelligence analyst) with Texas Homeland Security, Wilson, using his
Anadarko address, writes, “we find no intel specific for Texas. There is active
recruitment for directed action to take place in Oklahoma as per article. I will
forward any intel we come across on our end, especially if it concerns Texas.”
The article he was referring to was written by a member of Occupy Denver calling
on all “occupiers and occupy networks” to attend the Great Plains Tar Sands
Resistance training camp.
Wilson is not the only former law enforcement official on Anadarko’s security
team; Jeffrey Sweetin, the company’s Regional Security Manager, was a special
agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration for more than 20 years heading up
its Rocky Mountain division. At Anadarko, according to Sweetin’s profile on
Linkedin, his responsibilities include “security program development” and “law
enforcement liaison.”
Other large oil and gas companies have recruited local law enforcement to
fill high-level security positions. In 2010, long-time Bradford County Sheriff
Steve Evans resigned to take a position as senior security officer for
Chesapeake Energy in Pennsylvania. Evans was one of a handful of gas industry
security directors to receive intelligence bulletins compiled by a private
security firm and distributed by the Pennsylvania Department of Homeland
Security. Bradford County happens to be ground zero for natural gas drilling in
the Marcellus Shale, with more active wells than any other county in the state.
In addition to Evans, several deputies of the Bradford County Sheriff’s office
have worked for Chesapeake — through a private contractor, TriCorps Security —
as “off-duty” security personnel. TransCanada has also come to rely on off duty
police officers to patrol construction sites and protest camps, raising
questions about whose interests the sworn officers are serving.
Of course for corporations like TransCanada and Anadarko having law
enforcement on their side (or in their pocket) is more than just a good business
move. It gives them access to classified information and valuable intelligence —
essential weapons in any counterinsurgency campaign.
Adam Federman is a frequent contributor to
Earth Island Journal. You can find more of his work at
adamfederman.com</
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