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Washington peace group sues over infiltration
Members of a Washington anti-war group are suing an Army intelligence analyst, as well as the city of Olympia and several of its police officials, claiming their organization was illegally infiltrated and that the information gathered was used to make wrongful arrests.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle, 13 people alleged John J. Towery, a civilian intelligence analyst at Fort Lewis, attended their meetings and demonstrations using a false identity and relayed information about them to law-enforcement authorities, such as Seattle's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Members of Olympia Port Mobilization Resistance - so called because it opposed the Army's use of civilian ports to ship Stryker vehicles to Iraq - outed Towery last summer, after learning who he was through public disclosure requests filed with Olympia. They said he had been involved with the group since early 2007 and claimed he confessed when confronted.
"This is important because it's one of the few times the military has actually been caught spying," said Larry Hildes, the attorney who brought the case. "It has fundamentally chilled the climate for First Amendment activity in Olympia and Tacoma. It's caused people to distrust each other, and it's made it very difficult to organize peaceful demonstrations."