Declassified Docs Reveal Military Operative Spied on WA Peace Groups, Activist Friends Stunned
Newly declassified documents reveal that an active member of Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance in Washington state was actually an informant for the US military. The man everyone knew as “John Jacob” was in fact John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis. The military’s role in the spying raises questions about possibly illegal activity. The Posse Comitatus law bars the use of the armed forces for law enforcement inside the United States. The base’s Public Affairs office publicly acknowledged, for the first time, that Towery is a military operative. “This could be one of the key revelations of this era,” said Eileen Clancy, who has closely tracked government spying on activist organizations.
An interesting side note is the vehement opposition to an upcoming lecture series by David Irving, a controversial author soon scheduled to appear in Portland and Seattle, who anti-fascist activists have jacketed as anti-Semitic and a Holocaust denier. But notably oblique to the ACLU’s position in its historic defense of the right, under the 1st Amendment, of the American Nazi Party to parade in Skokie, Illinois (where many Holocaust survivors resided at the time), Mr. Irving’s detractors wish to deny him the opportunity (as some Anarchists wish to deny photojournalists) to exercise those same rights. They state, in their online calls to action against this author:
“David Irving’s speeches provide an opportunity for white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other hardcore anti-semites to network and plan. Our organization has previously argued that Irving’s gatherings have an energizing effect on local neo-Nazis. It is for this reason that they must be opposed by anti-fascists.”
It would appear some activists prefer our Bill of Rights to be applied very selectively–something they protest when themselves targeted for intervention. ‘Thought crimes’ have now become a mainstay of ‘true believers’ on both ends of the political spectrum justifying the suspension of the U.S. Constitution.
