March 28, 2005
Prior Discussions On Review Of JTTF Records
Early Suggestions Of Access By Attorney Or Judiciary
We've been spending some time reaching back into the archives of various local papers to read up on even more of the history surrounding the debate over oversight of the JTTF, and this 2001 Willamette Week article seems relevant for its description of some of that past discussion.
Given that history, many civil libertarians have wondered who is going to ensure that the task force only targets criminal activity. Mayor Vera Katz has argued that the city attorney could review the task force's files twice a year. But at the Sept. 26 hearing, activist/lawyer Alan Graf produced a February 2000 letter in which City Attorney Jeff Rodgers conceded that his office had a potential conflict of interest since it already has an attorney-client relationship with the Portland Police Bureau.
Following last week's hearing, Commissioners Sten and Jim Francesconi floated the idea of having a judge or judicial panel review PJTTF files every three months. If cops were keeping tabs on political activities, the police chief, the mayor and, possibly, the City Council would be notified. The only potential sticking point is whether such oversight is legal. Rogers is supposed to issue an opinion on the matter this week.
The concern raised in that first paragraph is something that clearly needs to be vetted, and hopefully will be discussed during this Wednesday evening's City Council hearing on the Leonard/Potter oversight resolution.
An interesting sidebar to that issue is the aftermath of a court ruling in the mid-90s that the Portland Police Bureau had created and/or maintained, in violation of ORS 181.575, a file on activist groups meeting to discuss police accountability issues.
In the wake of that ruling, the City launched a policy of having the City Attorney's office regularly review Bureau records for similar potential violations of the law. However, the City Attorney eventually recruited the Independent Police Review to assist with that process -- although we appear to have lost track of the URL which explained whether this was because of the above conflict-of-interest concern, or because of manpower and resources.
That second above-quoted passage is relevant because in the past weeks, several people have raised the notion of turning to such judicial review of relevant JTTF records, rather than giving such oversight to City officials. We include that passage here because we asked the City Attorney's office if the opinion on the issue which was to be produced by then City Attorney Jeff Rogers had ever in fact been produced.
"I have done a search of the computer and paper records available to us at the office and have found no documents responsive to your request," said Deputy City Attorney David Woboril. We turned to Woboril on this issue because he handles JTTF-related matters for the City Attorney's office.
"I have also spoken to an attorney who would have been involved in writing an opinion on the topic of judicial oversight of CIU," Woboril continued. "So far, there is no indication of the existence of an opinion on this topic. I have ordered a box of records from archives, and should have them in a few days, but it's a long shot."
Comments (1)
allehseya on 28 Mar 2005
very interesting....looking forward to updates on this...