Public records show that for years, Medford Police violated Oregon law by collecting and storing information on people and groups with no suspicion of criminal activity.
MEDFORD, Ore. — Today, the ACLU of Oregon and its legal partners, Alicia LeDuc Montgomery and Bradley Bernstein Sands, filed a lawsuit against the City of Medford on behalf of clients Rogue Valley Pepper Shakers, Stabbin Wagon, and Melissa Jones, who are progressive political activists and a part of mutual aid groups that care for their neighbors in need.
Public records show that the Medford Police Department (Medford Police) illegally surveilled progressive individuals and groups engaged in causes such as racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive justice, housing justice, harm reduction, decriminalization, government transparency, and environmental advocacy, when no crime had been committed. This surveillance was discovered by an organization called Information for Public Use, that requested Medford Police records and found evidence of them collecting intel on progressive groups and events, including a drive-in movie that happened at the YMCA as part of Juneteenth activities.
“Instead of investigating real safety threats, the Medford Police are wasting resources spying on someone like me who's just trying to care for my neighbors,” said client Melissa Jones.
Another egregious example of the Medford Police’s practice of spying on community members took place in 2022 in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the federal constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade. Here, Medford Police surveilled reproductive rights advocacy groups' plans to engage in First Amendment protected activities, including intentions to hold a protest called “Bans OFF Our Bodies”.
“The Medford Police is blatantly disregarding a three-decades-old state law that prohibits this type of surveillance. Their doubling down is a bald display of impunity from those we trust to enforce the law. This abuse of power without fear of accountability is chilling and must be stopped,” said Kelly Simon, ACLU of Oregon Legal Director.
“For a number of months I was afraid to leave my house. I had been doxed. My friends and I continue to be scared. The police have so much power within their own group and also in the community. I fear the Medford Police Department’s capabilities and while they make working together with my community incredibly hard, we refuse to stop distributing supplies and support to marginalized folks,” said client Sam Strong, Co-Founder and Organizer with the Rogue Valley Pepper Shakers.
The Medford Police’s practice of monitoring progressive advocacy groups and related individuals and activities without any reasonable suspicions of illegal actions is an egregious violation of Oregon State law (ORS 181A.250), which prohibits police from collecting or maintaining information about the political, religious, or social views, and associations or activities of people who are not reasonably suspected of criminal activity.
ORS 181A.250 passed with overwhelming support in the state legislature in 1981 after it was discovered that the Portland police were maintaining files on political advocacy organizations like the ACLU of Oregon. This law remains a necessary protection against police abuses. Despite this law that is more than three decades old, research shows that many police departments, as well as Oregon’s main police training agency — the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST) — provide little to no education on this law.
At the federal level, we have seen a long history of similarly problematic policing tactics, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s COINTELPRO operations that invaded the civil rights movement, and more recently, former president Trump’s surveillance apparatus maintaining baseball card profiles on people who attended the 2020 protests in support of Black lives.
“The Medford Police are monitoring people like me because of what we care about, not for anything related to crime. Other activists, advocates and organizations who support Black, brown, and queer lives, see abortion as a healthcare right, care for the unhoused, the environment, and practice harm reduction, could be subject to this illegal invasion of privacy too,” said client Toren McKnight, Co-Founder and Organizer with the Rogue Valley Pepper Shakers.
“Stabbin Wagon's mission has always been clear: to mitigate the most egregious impacts of the failed and misguided war on drugs in the Rogue Valley. Preventing overdose deaths, disrupting transmission of infectious diseases, and connecting members of our community in need to vital resources benefits all of Medford's residents. The city's attempts to interfere with our life-saving work and their determination to see us as a threat to the community, rather than an asset, makes clear their blatant disregard for basic human decency. It is time for their illegal targeting and surveillance of local advocates to come to an end.” said client Joey Varilone, a representative of Stabbin Wagon.
Under Oregon’s Public Records Law (ORS 192.311 – 192.478), all Oregonians have the right to request public records about what information local government — including the police — are collecting or maintaining. The ACLU of Oregon’s website has a toolkit with a template and directions for Oregonians on how to submit their own public records requests.
More about ORS 181A.250:
The Oregon law that prohibits police spying was passed in 1981 after it was revealed that the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) engaged in widespread surveillance of individuals and groups. In 1988, the ACLU of Oregon and the PPB entered into a civil agreement to limit PPB’s collection of information of protesters and to incorporate the state law into PPB policy.
In 2002, the Portland Tribune uncovered records revealing that the PPB engaged in widespread surveillance between 1965-1985 of over 3,000 individuals and groups including the ACLU of Oregon, American Indian Movement, Black United Front, Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, Gray Panthers, McKenzie River Gathering, NAACP, Oregon Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, Planned Parenthood, Rape Relief Hotline, Sisters of the Road Cafe, United Farm Workers, and more.
Following 9/11, the City of Portland and other jurisdictions relied upon ORS 181A.250 in refusing to participate in the federal government’s round up of thousands of men because of their age and country of origin. Because the men targeted for questioning were not suspected of any criminal activity themselves and the questions probed their political, religious and associational beliefs and activities, Oregon law restricted local law enforcement from participating.
Despite the law, Oregon law enforcement continue to monitor Black and Indigenous movements throughout Oregon. For example in 2015, it was revealed that an analyst within the Oregon Department of Justice was monitoring social media posts with the hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #BLM. Reporting by The Guardian and The Intercept uncovered the Coos County Sheriff's Office, in conjunction with the Oregon Titan Fusion Center, was engaged in disturbing, corporate-funded surveillance of activists speaking out against construction of the Jordan Cove Pipeline.
The 1998 agreement between the ACLU of Oregon and the Portland Police Bureau regarding the collection of information about protesters is online here.
A 2002 ACLU of Oregon briefing paper on the law is online here.
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