FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)
Examples of JTTF Activities
- Prior to the start of the U.S. attack on Iraq, the FBI used JTTFs to interrogate 11,000 Iraqis and U.S. citizens of Iraqi descent living in the U.S.
- In 2004, the FBI used JTTFs to implement its “October Plan” of aggressive surveillance and investigation of “persons of interest”, mainly Muslims. See the Council on American-Islamic Relations' October Plan Report.
- The Drake University chapter of the National Lawyer’s Guild came under suspicion after it organized a November 2003 campus anti-war protest and helped prepare a peaceful demonstration at the Iowa National Guard Headquarters. In February 2004, the U.S. Attorney subpoenaed the university president and four people who attended the event and issued a gag order. A local sheriff’s deputy, identifying himself as a member of the JTTF, served the subpoenas. The U.S. Attorney insisted that although the deputy was a JTTF member, he should not have identified himself as such and the investigations had nothing to do with terrorism. After the NLG filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, the FBI withdrew the subpoenas and dropped the case.
- On May 11, 2004, State University of New York at Buffalo Professor Steve Kurtz woke to find his wife dead of heart failure in their home. When emergency personnel arrived, they saw chemicals and other laboratory equipment Kurtz used in his work with the Critical Art Ensemble, a group of performance artists. The JTTF was called and Kurtz was arrested. The JTTF questioned him, along with several colleagues, about whether he was involved in bioterrorism. The JTTF never found any terrorism connection, nor did it find there was any restriction on Kurtz’s possession of the materials. Instead of exonerating Kurtz, the Justice Department charged Kurtz and a colleague with mail fraud, for using a university account to obtain the laboratory supplies. The case is ongoing. More info
- In 2003, The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, on behalf of local groups, sued the Denver Police Department. They discovered the Denver Police, in concert with the JTTF, had been compiling “spy files” on local groups like the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). They settled the case after Denver Police agreed to purge the files and cease their spying. However, in 2004 the JTTF again grilled AFSC members as to whether they intended to commit crimes at the political conventions. More info
- In 2004, JTTF members monitored and interrogated activists throughout the country planning to protest the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Several activists were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury. More info
- In 2004 Aaron Kilner, a Fresno, California sheriff’s deputy assigned to a JTTF, infiltrated Peace Fresno, a local group peacefully protesting the Iraq war. He posed as a member and called himself Aaron Stokes. Other members were unaware of his identity until the local newspaper printed his picture after he died in a motorcycle accident. Although this type of surveillance is illegal in California, the JTTF used federal law to justify its actions.
- In 2004, two Army intelligence agents illegally tried to gather evidence about attendees at an Islamic women’s rights conference at the University of Texas Law School. Two Army lawyers had attended the conference and reported their findings to the JTTF. An Army spokesperson called it a lapse in judgment.
- In 2002, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) JTTF member
questioned Professor Musaddak (M.J.) Alhabeeb after hearing he had
anti-American views. M.J. was born in Iraq and was a naturalized
U.S. citizen. He had never spoken against the U.S. The tip came
from an associate at the local public access cable television station
where he was on the board. The FBI gained nothing from the interview
but it, and the campus police, lost several degrees of trust and
respect in the local community.
Local police have a history of involvement in intelligence operations similar to the JTTF:
- After the police spying scandals of the “Red Squad” era, consent decrees were issued in major cities like New York and Chicago. These decrees put restrictions on police monitoring and infiltrating of organizations without proof of criminal activity. Recently some of these decrees have been rescinded, allowing for expanded police powers. The embedding of local police in the JTTFs further expands these powers. The Los Angeles Police Department has instituted “605 status” officers that train in secret and operate anonymously, to the extent that there are no internal records of their employment. Their official duty is to conduct internal affairs investigations, but Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Michael Berkow says they would be equally effective in investigating non-police terror suspects. This would create the circumstance not only of local officers being imbedded with the FBI, but of those officers being unknown even to members of their own police department.
- Police have a long history of illegal spying. In Portland in 2002, a local reporter discovered decades worth of spy files in a former police officer’s barn. Rather than see them shredded after a newly passed Oregon law rendered them illegal, the officer took them home. Files had been kept on harmless groups as Northwest Oregon Voter Registration Project, the ACLU, the NAACP, and even a future Portland mayor whose support of a grape boycott was written up as subversive. In New York City, intelligence files on political groups dated back to 1904. In Chicago, political dissidents were targeted in the 1960’s and anti-war groups are currently being monitored.
- In the JTTF, officers gain top-secret clearances and access to FBI computers. Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Michael Berkow noted the historical abuse of police department databases by officers. These range from “running the vehicle registration of an attractive motorist to seeking names and information in connection with a private investigation business.” Recently an Orange County (FL) Sheriff’s Deputy used the state’s driver’s license records to “track down a woman who called him fat in a letter to the editor.”
- In the 1950s and 60s, the FBI's COINTELPRO program operated to
monitor and neutralize policital dissidents. More
info
Other Resources
FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force
(JTTF) FAQ: COINTELPRO Redux
JTTF Locations by State
Find out if an officer in
your area participates in a JTTF
More JTTF Resources and Links