By Brenda Norrell
Special to Navajo Times
DENVER, Colo. The Denver Police Department's spy operation targeted Big Mountain supporters and Native American leaders across America, according to documents now being exposed as a federal lawsuit proceeds.
"It seems that Indians, and Colorado AIM in particular, have been targeted in the
spy files,'" said Glenn Morris, AIM member and professor in Denver.
Morris, targeted by the spy operation, is now obtaining copies of spy data police collected on him, some of which police shared with the FBI.
Targeted were Russell Means, Vine Deloria, Jr., Wilma Mankiller, Winona LaDuke, John Echohawk, John Mohawk, George "Tink" Tinker, Wallace Coffey, Ward Churchill, Dennis Banks, the Leonard Peltier Support Group, Big Mountain Support Group, Colorado AIM, and the Native American Rights Fund, Morris said.
"This is the Indian equivalent of having a police spy database in the Black community that consisted of files on WEB DuBois, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Thurgood Marshall, Jesse Jackson, NAACP, the Black Panthers, Cornell West, John Hope Franklin and Angela Davis, all at the same time," Morris said.
Currently, Native leaders are obtaining copies of their files and discovering a new revelation: Police spy files exist on Native Americans across America, from Portland to New York.
After six new file cabinets of Denver police spy files were discovered, Morris pointed out that the City of Denver never voluntarily disclosed the existence of the files.
The spy files were revealed by the All Nations Alliance, which was the umbrella alliance for Transform Columbus Day, and the American Civil Liberties Union in March of this year, he said.
The files were revealed in another criminal case, which exposed that Denver Police Department shared the spy files with the Golden, Colo., police department.
"We are not sure with whom else the files have been shared, but in Russell Means' and my file there are references to some sharing with the FBI," Morris said.
Morris said the "files" that have been released to date are not files at all, but computer indexes of hard copy files that the Denver Police Department said did not exist.
"In September, after the Denver Police Department said that all the files that the Intelligence Bureau had were disclosed, they 'discovered' six new file cabinets of photos, videos and hard copy files that were never disclosed,"Morris said.
The ACLU, representing several plaintiffs including members of All Nations Alliance, filed a class action suit under a federal law which allows public officials who have violated one's civil rights to be sued in federal court.
"That suit is proceeding now, but has not yet been set for trial," Morris said.
Osage author and professor Tink Tinker was also targeted in the Denver Police spy operation. Tinker, an activist who spoke at Columbus Day protests along with Morris and Means in recent years, found 17 pages on his activities recorded in the Denver Spy Files.
Not only was Tinker targeted, but the religious graduate school where he is professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions was also targeted.
It is the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.
Tinker said, "Now the school where I teach -- a largely White, christian (Methodist) graduate school of theology training ministers -- is also suspect of criminal activity!"
Tinker said the spy operation was underway long before last year's incidents leading to the Patriot Act.
"Since this pre-dates the September 11, 2001, events and thus pre-dates passage of the Patriot Act, it demonstrates a considerable history of the disallowing of dissent in the United States -- a clear violation of constitutional intent in our so-called constitutional democracy," Tinker said.
Tinker said spy files on Native Americans and human rights activists are now emerging across America.
"These 'spy' files -- which are not just a Denver phenomenon but are now coming to the surface in other cities from Portland, Ore., to New York -- also point to a particularly nagging problem with respect to the impunity enjoyed by police in this 'free' country that the president bragged about shortly after 9-11-01."
Tinker said he expects the situation to worsen.
"It seems that freedom extends especially to the police in their increasing control of civil society in the United States," Tinker said.
"What has been happening since 9-11-01 is even more scary. I predict that we will see an ever-increasing demonstration of police power, police impunity, disallowal of dissenting voices, and control of civil behaviors."
