Oakland Terminates Ties With Problematic FBI Task Force
On October 20, 2020, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously to terminate a task force relationship with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (“JTTF”), due to the JTTF’s problematic history of repeatedly violating human rights across the country.
Introduced by City Council President Rebecca Kaplan in response to the unanimous recommendation of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission (“PAC”), and supported by a large coalition of thirty-four civil liberties and racial justice organizations, Oakland joined San Francisco (2017) and Portland (2019) in withdrawing from the JTTF due to concerns about different values and practices. Former FBI agent and current Brennan Center Liberty & National Security fellow Mike German also supplied expert written and verbal testimony in support of Oakland’s withdrawal from the JTTF.
Secure Justice Executive Director Brian Hofer is Chair of the PAC, and advisory member Heather Patterson also serves on the commission.
As stated in the coalition’s September 1, 2020 letter to the Oakland City Council:
“The FBI has a long history of criminalizing entire communities and spying on organizations and movements engaged in First Amendment-protected activities under the guise of national security.”
First created in New York City in 1980, the attack on the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001 dramatically escalated the number and scope of JTTF task forces across the country, now numbering approximately 200. JTTF’s are controlled by the FBI, but also include many other federal agencies like Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), and state and local law enforcement agencies. Although intended to address terrorist threats, most JTTF incident reports bear little resemblance to their supposed mission – in practice, the FBI has essentially redefined any crime as an act of terrorism. Countless reports and documents from all across the country demonstrate that the JTTF has become focused on the unlawful targeting of Muslims and Black activists, and First Amendment protected activity like protesting the building of a pipeline across Native American sovereign land, police violence, and the election of Donald Trump.
"The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has long terrorized Oakland's communities of color, especially those of Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian descent, based on nothing more than race, religion, and ethnicity. The end of Oakland's partnership with the JTTF is a step in the right direction towards true public safety,” said Javeria Jamil, a staff attorney with the National Security and Civil Rights Program at Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus.
Despite the FBI’s policy and repeated testimony that the agency does not target ideologies, this past year former Attorney General William Barr directed the JTTF to escalate targeting of anti-fascist protestors that counter-protested the many white nationalist rallies across the country encouraged by the Trump administration. AG Barr even urged federal attorneys to prosecute such First Amendment protected activity as sedition or treason, clearly intended to create a chilling effect on the expression of dissent and challenges to the status quo.
With a police department entering its national record-setting eighteenth year of federal oversight due to a pattern and practice of racial profiling and human rights abuses, the concerns about the JTTF’s different values and legal authorization is necessarily heightened in Oakland. Among other problematic policies, the U.S. Department of Justice guidelines allow JTTF task force officers, including those from the Oakland Police Department, to a) conduct surveillance of individuals without any suspicion of wrongdoing, b) conduct demographic mapping including by race, religion, and country of origin, c) to participate in civil asset forfeiture, and d) to collect US personhood status. Each of these practices violate state and local laws and existing Oakland policies.
"As a Yemeni American, our family knows what it's like to be viewed with suspicion for no other reason than country of origin or religion. The FBI's well documented practice of surveilling Muslims because of familial or cultural ties to the Middle East does not make us safer," said Jehan Hakim, Chair of the Yemeni Alliance Committee. "We are very grateful to the Oakland City Council for understanding that these harmful law enforcement techniques do not align with Oakland values."
Adding to the above concerns, the legal protections afforded to deputized officers allow them to take advantage of federal protections like supremacy clause immunity that have led to disastrous results and greatly prohibited holding law enforcement agents accountable across the country.
In the case below, Mr. Jackson had not committed the crime he was suspected of. The facts before the court demonstrated that Officer Kleinert bludgeoned Mr. Jackson in the head with his gun, that Kleinert shot Mr. Jackson in the back of the head at point blank range, and that Kleinert conceded that he had no “specific and articulable” facts that would have permitted him to search Mr. Jackson before he fled in fear. Kleinert was able to defeat the manslaughter charge.
“In 2013, Charles Kleinert, an officer with the Austin police department, while working as a federal task force officer, shot and killed Larry Jackson, an unarmed 32 year-old black man. Jackson ‘s only offense was evading detention. Travis County prosecutors charged Kleinert with manslaughter. However, Kleinert was able to escape liability after he was determined to be a federal law enforcement officer, which entitled him to take advantage of a federal Supremacy Clause immunity defense which was not available to state or local law enforcement agents. The Court found that “[l]ocal law-enforcement officer deputized as federal agent and acting as part of federal task force had to be treated as federal agent, on local law-enforcement officer's claim to Supremacy Clause immunity defense to state's charge of manslaughter in killing of suspect; officer was serving on full-time assignment to Federal Bureau of Investigation, he had been deputized by both FBI and United States Marshals Service, he maintained office at FBI, was issued FBI equipment, and had access to all nationwide FBI computer files....” Texas v. Kleinert (W.D. Tex. 2015) 143 F.Supp.3d 551.
As stated in his public testimony to Oakland’s Public Safety Committee on October 13, 2020, Mr. German framed the issue perfectly.
“The security of Oakland residents can best be assured when law enforcement policies and practices respect constitutional limits; employ reasonable evidentiary standards for initiating investigations and collecting intelligence; prohibit racial profiling and immigration enforcement; and are subjected to independent oversight and public accountability. Federal laws and guidelines governing FBI investigations do not meet these reasonable requirements, and the FBI fails to allow the transparency necessary to assure Oakland police officers assigned to the JTTF comply with state and local laws, ordinances, and policies.”
“Oakland’s City Council voted to protect our communities from harmful federal law enforcement practices of profiling, surveillance, and targeting of vulnerable groups. We must continue to uphold our city’s values and build a stronger community,” said Sameena Usman, Government Relations Coordinator, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, SF Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA), and a Secure Justice Board Member.
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