[News] Undercover Agents Infiltrated Tar Sands Resistance Camp to Break Up Planned Protest

[Anti-Imperialist News]

August 12, 2013
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/12/undercover-agents-infiltrated-tar-sands-resistance-camp-to-break-up-planned-protest/


*TransCanada and Department of Homeland Security Keep Close Eye on 
Activists, FOIA Documents Reveal*


  Undercover Agents Infiltrated Tar Sands Resistance Camp to Break Up
  Planned Protest

by ADAM FEDERMAN

After a week of careful planning, environmentalists attending a tar 
sands resistance action camp in Oklahoma thought they had the element of 
surprise --- but they would soon learn that their moves were being 
closely watched by law enforcement officials and TransCanada, the very 
company they were targeting.

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.

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.

The evidence of heightened cooperation between TransCanada and law 
enforcement agencies in Oklahoma and Texas comes just over a month after 
it was revealed 
<http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/transcanada_is_spying_on_keystone_xl_opponents/> 
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.

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 CounterPunch and the Earth 
Island Journal, where this story originally appeared. You can find more 
of his work at adamfederman.com <http://adamfederman.com/>./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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