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City eyes ACLU request

Group again urges police to withdraw from FBI task force

Karen Abbott, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 19, 2005 at midnight

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Denver officials said Wednesday they will discuss a renewed request from the American Civil Liberties Union that the city withdraw its police from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Colorado ACLU Legal Director Mark Silverstein on Wednesday sent a second letter from the organization to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and the City Council, saying the FBI tracks people and organizations because of their peaceful political activities.

Denver police are prohibited from collecting such information under a 2003 agreement ending an ACLU federal lawsuit against the city, known as the "spy files" case.

Silverstein said at a news conference that JTTF files recently obtained by the ACLU confirm that the task force is collecting information about people's political activities that are protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Michael Battista, the Denver Police Department's deputy chief in charge of operations, said he meets weekly with the city's two officers on the task force to be sure they are following the "spy files" settlement rule against collecting such information.

He doesn't want Denver to withdraw from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

"Since 9/11, that's what we've been trying to do as a nation, is get more communication between the different agencies," he said. "I believe that withdrawing from the task force would be detrimental to the security of Denver."

An FBI spokeswoman didn't return a telephone call Wednesday seeking comment.

City Council President Elba Wedgeworth said council members received Silverstein's letter by e-mail Wednesday.

"We need to kind of regroup and talk with the city attorney's office," she said.

Denver City Attorney Cole Finegan said he hopes to meet soon with Police Chief Gerry Whitman to discuss the issue. Whitman was in Los Angeles Wednesday checking on investigators searching for the alleged killer of a Denver detective.

A spokeswoman for Hickenlooper didn't return a telephone call seeking comment.

FBI recently released to the ACLU files on two Coloradans - 21-year-old Sarah Bardwell, of Denver, and 29-year-old Scott Silber, of Boulder - that list organizations to which the JTTF believed they were connected.

One of the organizations is Food Not Bombs, which Bardwell said collects donated food from grocery stores and distributes it to the poor.

Another organization in the files is the Derailer Bicycle Collective, which Bardwell said repairs old bicycles for children and homeless people.

She has been active with both organizations, as well as with the American Friends Service Committee.

Silber, a University of Colorado graduate, is a labor consultant. He said he isn't affiliated with any of the groups mentioned in the JTTF's file on him.

Both denied any connection to another group mentioned in their FBI files, Anarchist Black Cross.

Bardwell and Silber were targeted last summer as part of nationwide JTTF interviews of activists who were to be asked if they planned to commit any crimes at the upcoming national political conventions or knew anyone who did. Both declined to talk with the officers.

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