Mayor : FBI was trying to spy on Portland Government

[shance]

Portland Mayor Tom Potter on Wednesday accused the FBI of using "big brother" tactics in his city by trying to recruit an informant inside the offices of City Hall.




The FBI said it "strongly disagrees on the significance of the incident described."


Dan Nielsen, the FBI's acting special agent in charge for Oregon, said an agent and a city employee "came across each other in day-to-day activities, Starbucks and they work out in the same gym."


He said the agent made no secret about who he was, and when the city employee was "clearly uncomfortable about the situation," he told her she was free to report the contact."


"It wasn't the jackbooted thug coming in and putting on the klieg lights," Nielsen said.

(snip)

In a letter posted Wednesday on the city's Web site, Potter said a city employee on May 11 was stopped by a special agent from the Portland FBI who asked whether she knew any of Portland's five City Council members.


According to Potter, the employee was asked "if she would be willing to pass information to him relating to people who work for the city of Portland. He said that while he had duties in other areas, the agency was always interested in information relating to white collar crime and other things."


Potter said the agency's actions smacked of "big brother," especially in light of recent news reports about some of the nation's biggest phone companies sharing millions of customer records with the National Security Agency.


Last November, the FBI opened a public corruption investigation into the Portland Police Bureau's handling of pawn and secondhand shops that sold stolen merchandise.


On Wednesday, Potter said that federal authorities have since told him they know of no public corruption in Portland and are not conducting an investigation of the city.


He said "there is no information to indicate any public corruption on the part of City Council members or employees," so "the FBI has no legitimate role in surreptitiously monitoring elected officials and city employees."

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_052406_news_portland_mayor_fbi_.1a5808e8.html

[RagAss]

1. let's see...Portland, Hoffa....how about Osama ?????

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. The mayor ended up bringing in the city police...

to search City Hall for bugs.

Pretty sketchy shit.

[swag]

3. Things have gone sour since Portland withdrew from the JTTF last year

The Feds did not like it when the Portland City Council voted to withdraw from the FBI-led "Joint Terrorism Task Force."

[gratuitous]

4. "It wasn't the jack-booted thug . . ."

No, it was something far more insidious: The sidling up, the presumed cozy arrangement, and the whispered promise of consideration. The FBI and the Justice Department have had their noses out of joint since the City of Portland declined to cooperate with the Joint Terrorism Task Force on the totally reasonable grounds that local police officers, paid for with city money, shouldn't be answerable to DC bureaucrats.

Portland, of course, is right next door to Aloha, home of attorney Brandon Mayfield, who was falsely accused of being one of the Madrid train bombers. In the name of national security and fightin' terrorism, Mayfield was arrested without charge and held for some time without access to counsel. During that time, his house and his law office were both searched without warrants. When the fingerprint that supposedly tied Mayfield to Madrid turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, the FBI wanted to just throw up their hands and say "No harm, no foul." Mayfield is currently suing the shit out of them.

[shance]

5. information kick

n/t