When more than 300 protesters assembled in May at the Holiday Inn in Lakewood, Colorado — the venue chosen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for an auction of oil and gas leases on public lands — several of the demonstrators were in fact undercover agents sent by law enforcement to keep tabs on the demonstration, according to emails obtained by The Intercept.
The “Keep it in the Ground” movement, a broad effort to block the development of drilling projects, has rapidly gained traction over the last year, raising pressure on the Obama administration to curtail hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and coal mining on federal public lands. In response, government agencies and industry groups have sharply criticized the activists in public, while quietly moving to track their activities.
The emails, which were obtained through an open records act request, show that the Lakewood Police Department collected details about the protest from undercover officers as the event was being planned. During the auction, both local law enforcement and federal agents went undercover among the protesters.
The emails further show that police monitored Keep it in the Ground participating groups such as 350.org, Break Free Movement, Rainforest Action Network, and WildEarth Guardians, while relying upon intelligence gathered by Anadarko, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the region.
“Gentlemen, Here is some additional intelligence on the group you may be dealing with today,” wrote Kevin Paletta, Lakewood’s then-chief of police, on May 12, the day of the protest. The Anadarko report, forwarded to Paletta by Joni Inman, a public relations consultant, warned of activist trainings conducted by “the very active off-shoot of 350.org” that had “the goal of encouraging ‘direct action’ such as blocking, vandalism, and trespass.”
The protesters waved signs and marched outside of the Holiday Inn. The auction went on as planned and there were no arrests.
“I believe the BLM reached out to us,” Steve Davis, the public information officer for the Lakewood police, told The Intercept about preparations for the protest. He added that the protest was “very peaceful.”
“Our goal is to provide for public safety and the safety of our employees,” says Steven Hall, the BLM Colorado Communications Director, when asked about the agency’s undercover work. “Any actions that we take are designed to achieved those goals. We do not discuss the details of our law enforcement activities.”
BLM reimbursed the Lakewood police for costs associated with covering the protest, the emails and a scanned copy of the check show.
Police officers block the entrance to the Bureau of Land Management auction at the Holiday Inn of Lakewood, Colorado, May 12, 2016.
Photo: Olivia Abtahi/Survival Media Agency
Aggressive Stance
Despite a relatively uncontroversial protest, the tactics revealed by the emails, recent public statements, and other maneuvers suggest that the federal government is beginning to take a more aggressive stance toward the Keep it in the Ground movement.
“I’m really wondering what more the BLM is up to,” said Jeremy Nichols, a climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians. “Some of the emails indicate more extensive intel gathering on their end.”
“Why are climate activists, who are only calling on the BLM to follow President Obama’s lead and heed universally accepted science, facing this kind of uphill response?” Nichols asked rhetorically. “It’s a shame that the BLM has turned climate concerns into a law enforcement issue instead of a genuine policy discussion.”
During a congressional hearing in March, Neil Kornze — the agency’s Director and former senior policy advisor for U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid — appeared to compare the anti-fracking activists to the armed anti-government militia members who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.
“We have had a situation where we have had militia; we’ve had people raising arms at different times. We are on heightened alert and we are concerned about safety. And so a situation that we are not used to, separating out who is a bidder and who is not, gives us pause,” Kornze said, explaining to GOP congressman that his agency faced “abnormal security” concerns.
The bureau maintains its own force of special agents to investigate crimes committed on public lands. The website for the agency notes that “investigations may require the use of undercover officers, informants, surveillance and travel to various locations throughout the United States.”
Broader Trend
In recent years federal and private sector groups have poured resources into surveilling environmental organizations.
In 2013, The Guardian revealed that the FBI had spied on activists organizing opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. The agency “collated inside knowledge about forthcoming protests, documented the identities of individuals photographing oil-related infrastructure, scrutinized police intelligence and cultivated at least one informant.” The FBI later confirmed that the investigation violated its own guidelines.
In 2011, an executive with Anadarko boasted that his company was deploying military-like psychological warfare techniques to deal with the “controversy that we as an industry are dealing with,” calling the opposition to the industry “an insurgency.”
Protestors gather inside the Holiday Inn of Lakewood, Colorado to protest the auctioning of public lands for oil and gas companies, May 12, 2016.
Photo: Olivia Abtahi/Survival Media Agency
Online Auctions to “End the Circus”
The focus on preventing the leasing of public lands for fracking gained national headlines in 2008 when activist Tim DeChristopher successfully bid on 22,000 acres of oil and gas land in Utah. DeChristopher, who served two years in prison, did not intend to pay but won the bid in order to disrupt the auction and call attention to the leasing program. That pricing regime allows private corporations to pay deeply discounted rates — as little as $1.50 per acre — for drilling rights.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Inspector General released a report calling on the bureau to do a study on “which auction process is best suited for oil and gas leases” in order to prevent the next Tim DeChristopher, whose action landed an explicit mention in the report’s introduction. An email exchange from the day before the Lakewood Holiday Inn action shows both a Lakewood police officer and BLM officer on high alert about the possibility of another DeChristopher-type action taking place. Among the choices laid out in the report as a possible new bidding method was online bidding.
Just days after the Lakewood protest, Kathleen Sgamma — a lobbyist for industry-funded group Western Energy Alliance — advocated for online bidding as a means to “end the circus.” In a May 18 email, BLM Office of Law Enforcement Special Agent-in-Charge Gary Mannino thanked Lakewood Police Chief Kevin Paletta for his department’s help and conveyed that public auctions could soon become a thing of the past.
Congress has followed suit. On June 24, Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Calif., and Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., introduced Innovation in Offshore Leasing Act (H.R. 5577), which calls for online bidding for oil and gas contained in waters controlled by the federal government. On July 6, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a hearing on the bill and it has since passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee.
While the oil and gas industry has come out in support of online bidding, and one contractor in particular named EnergyNet stands to profit from such an arrangement, several environmental groups issued a statement decrying the shift toward online bidding. EnergyNet, whose CEO testified at the June 24 congressional hearing, will oversee a September 20 BLM auction originally scheduled to unfold in Washington, D.C.
Two recently-released studies concluded that phasing out fossil fuel leases on public lands is crucial for meeting the 2° C climate change temperature-rise goal, with one concluding that even burning the existing fossil fuels already leased on public lands would surpass the 2° C goal. After the release of those two studies, environmental groups filed a legal petition with the Interior Department calling for a moratorium on federal fossil fuels leases.
I’m not surprised. My governor is a GIVE IT ALL AWAY TO FRACKING Democrat. He’s a former geologist who whispered w/Clinton at a fundraiser in his garden. We’re gathering sigs to put it on the ballet. Are we part of this UNDERCOVER BS? Does the Obama administration owe so much to big oil that they’re willing to pass it on to the next generations?
For me, it’s not electing Clinton. She will destroy the planet faster than anyone. We have to stop her. The new classified e-mails would prove her lies and stop her, but this administration has thrown the law to the wind. Why? That is what I want to know? Public lands belong to the people. The government can’t give them away to the corporate criminals.
If the goal is “Public Saftey” why are they not going under cover and infiltrating the “Frackers”, which are putting the “Public Safety” in jepordy in the first place for the sake of their profits via amoral campaign contributions.
10-4, Eleanor! This is a corruption that has spanned several administrations of both parties, which are bought and owned by oligarchs, do not care about the people, the Constitution or the law. This only happens because WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, have allowed it to happen by failing to monitor and control our political leaders. Nothing will change until we change and make everything else change.
I never advocate violence, and I am certainly not doing so now, but I am predicting that if the government and industry continue this Fascist take-away of our freedoms, rights and property there WILL be a violent revolution. What is happening right now with oil and gas e&p is precisely the type of actions that spurred the Boston Tea Party, and we all know what happened after that!
But, if you want to see the person responsible for these actions that are an assault on our Constitutional rights, then just look in a mirror, because if yuo are not actively engaged in this fight, then you are as much a part of the problem as the oil and gas industry and the political leaders that favor it.
Police officers ready and willing to blow away all civilians who dare exercise free speech near the entrance to the Bureau of Land Management
Welcome to Fascist America in 2016! Police in America have been steadily transforming into the Gestapo since the Nixon Administration, and WE have allowed it by our inaction and apathy.
We’re not fascist, we’re just oppressed by some of the most powerful people.
Gene Sharp’s _The Dynamics of Nonviolent Action_ has a section on movement strategy and dealing with infiltration. He notes that for a nonviolent justice movement, keeping information secret from the opposition in general isn’t possible, and therefore a policy of openness, rather than secrecy, is best. He makes what for me is a compelling case that movement secrecy is counterproductive. When a nonviolent movement adopts a policy of openness, infiltration by the opposition becomes essentially irrelevant — you have nothing to hide, so there’s little for the opposition to gain from infiltration.
That doesn’t work when you’re doing actions that would be prevented if the cops and/or opposition knew about them ahead of time. I have been involved with many nonviolent actions that would have been stopped by the cops or company security if we hadn’t been able to keep them to ourselves before we did them.
Does the FBI monitor Anadarko? Does the FBI have undercover agents apply for jobs at Anadarko? The government has to be fair and impartial in these matters, or treat some of its citizens as enemies.
Consistent w/ the two, or many more faced, obamanothercountry’s support for corporate global dominance by any means necessary, no matter how evil or venal the actions are that are taken by the gutless spineless worm
If the leasing goes to an online only format it will be time to unleash the hackers on them and totally shut it down!
As though the Fed’s haven’t always been corrupt corporate owned trash – they are the same Justice Dept scum who helped legalize perjury, forgery and fraud – as long as you are rich and white.
Obama turning into a modern day fascist. Our wildlands have been whored out to ranchers and extractors that are using up our public lands like old whores.
But this is icky disgusting! What a low blow from the White House to this trashy behavior.
Actually Zig a little research shows that Obama has actually protected more of the environment than any other president if you include the offshore areas that he has also protected. If you count land only then he comes in second only to FDR.
I’ll be the first to say I expected more from Obama with regard to protecting the environment but let’s at least be proportional in our outrage.
Obama has protected the environment? Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Obama has leased more public land to extractive industries than any other president. Obama has listed fewer species under the Endangered Species Act than any other president (including Reagan and Bush II, both of whom were complete environmental disasters), and we have to fight tooth & nail with his administration to get a species listed. Obama has started a war against wolves, a species that now only exists in a tiny fraction of its natural range and in tiny numbers. Obama has opened up the Atlantic Ocean and more of the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling, in addition to opening up the seas around Alaska. Obama is pushing the TPP, which would be another environmental disaster for several reasons. Obama promotes fracking and nuclear power.
To be fair, Obama has done a few good things, like trying to end coal and creating a few National Monuments. But to claim that he’s been a great protector of the environment is ludicrous.
Squeaky wheels get greased. Get it?
Laws should protect us from the Feds and their Nixon like infiltration and provocation of legally protesting groups..If not we should be able to identify and arrest people that are behaving in treasonous manner towards our freedom and our constitution..strip them of physical and legal protection and they will quit…
The reason they are heating up their action is because this is a major part of the be-all-and-end-all of what the US Powers-that-Be are trying to achieve:
– Control the global oil pricing mechanism (hence invading Afghanistan and Iraq as strategic locations to threaten Iran)
– Raise the prices sky-high to make fracking profitable
– Frack and generate trillions of dollars
– Keep the pricing artificially high despite the flooded supply
– Force China (and everyone else) to pay exorbitant prices for fuel to counter their economic growth whilst enriching the US and Saudi Arabia
– Expand territorially into Africa and Middle East, control Asia through one-sided trade agreements and high oil prices
To achieve this end they must:
– Trample over opposition within the US to fracking and appropriation of tax money
– Attack Syria and Iran and their other Shiite allies, risking an escalation of genuine terrorism from Shiite supporters rather than the phoney terrorism of ISIS
– Risk war with Russia and China and any other countries that ally to their bloc that does not wish to be crippled by inflated oil prices and does not want to see the US as the sole world power
– Undermine the democratic political processes of the developed nations that may act politically to oppose the US, such as in Europe
– Cause global hardship through driving up oil prices
– Cause the fundamental economic principle of Supply and Demand to work contrary to its nature
All in a year or two’s work for the Evil Empire. The rest of this decade sure is gonna be fun with either Crazy Clinton or Truculent Trump acting like Emperor Elect of (an albeit poisoned and nuked) Earth.
I am thoroughly exhausted and again humiliated all over town. This is so much fun. Lauren….They think she is a fucking genius. SEALS
This report is just a very tiny taste of what’s to come if Hillary is elected and gets any part of the TPP. To boot, the chemicals in fracking will wick up into the water supply and poison whole populations. Then, people in the US will either have to import water, take their chances drinking polluted acidified rain water or desalinated ocean water with pieces of mercury and fukushima in it.
Dont forget that the irrigation for food will put those chemicals in your fruits and veggies. That way later on in life, having suffered thru years of deformed children, you can die early and quickly from sudden organ failures. Other than that things are just fine…..
Well, since at least the 1980s we’ve seen a long trail of PR and Marketing to make the wealthy criminal class seem like saints. In other words, the American people have been hypnotized. You can thank Ronald Reagan, Bush, Clinton et al. All activists are now commonly regarded as anti-American. Agencies like EPA, SEC, FDA, USDA, et al are entrusted to protect the biggest industries. So, any who point out the crimes of industry are now the presumed guilty. Hence, all activists are now criminals.
This is the behavior of a Police State/Marshal Law regime. The idea that there is democracy in any form in the Imperial US is quite absurd and unsupportable.
It is long past time for editors to recognize this and stop using language that obfuscates the reality. Torture is torture not “enhanced interrogation” as GG has pointed out on several occasions. So too, Martial Law is Martial Law.
Citizens recreating on Public Lands are now described as customers and consumers by the BLM, USFS, NPS, USFWS personnel even though we, the citizens, pay their salaries through our taxes. These agencies manage our Public Lands for us; they do not own them. We are not their customers and we are not consumers. Never let them address you with those terms. They are our public servants. They work for us.
One of the most significant aspects of this article
is the way that Jeremy Nichols, like so many others who
seem to be disturbed by the militant corporatism
is still buying into the delusion that Obama doesn’t
support the actions of the FBI and the BLM.
Nichols and so many others still refuse to see that Obama is using
words
to deceive them while continuing the corporate takeover.
Agreed, and they are going for more as the sheeple willingly get in the cattle cars with either HRC or Trumpet.
Also, if we were to “profile” the new military police, we would discover they come from realitive poverty and a culture that creates the authoritarian personality. They don’t have the wherewithal to understand they are killing their own children and/or delivering them to lives of slavery by turning on real democracy.
The corporate thieves used to confine this behavior to the “third world” when Americans began to see through the lies, they brought the evil practice home.
While I’ve no doubt that the infiltration of anti-fracking activists occurred, each and every one of your “document cloud” links 404s spectacularly.
Maybe it’s just me?
There is some cruft at the end of the linked URLs.
For example, the link in the sentence “The emails, which were obtained through an open records act request, show that the Lakewood Police Department collected details” should be https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2940165-Lakewood-Police-Dept-FOIA-Docs.html Instead, it has ” \l “document/p6/a306669 at the end. Maybe a formatting issue with the article?
Thanks.
I suppose the authors were trying to link directly to their relevant citations, yet were unsuccessful.
The document links do not work.
This goes beyond fracking and climate change. Don’t you notice the trend in American history to spy on its citizens who dare to take a courageous stand to demand fairness and justice within the society, to do no harm to the citizens. I would like to know how much spying is done by these same agencies to protect citizens from criminal and harmful activities of many US corporations. We have the Wall Street bankers, the pharmaceutical industry and drugs that have not been rigorously tested before releasing to the public, the food industry that produces foods of poor nutritional content, the agriculture industry that utilizes known toxins in its pesticides, the motor vehicle industry that deliberately cut corners, putting the lives of drivers at risk. I can go on and on. Where is the prosecution of these CEOs? Why aren’t they being pursued for prosecution like how a whistleblower is pursued?
ribeekah, it is all according to the American economic plan. They don’t want any people objecting to the deadly damage they are creating. It is all about money. Apparently the US government is rotten to the core.
We live in a plutocratic-oligarchy. It is much harder to defeat this than a fascist-milartistic style government, as it is hidden in legalistic jargon and double speak, as Obama so freely uses. We get rid of one through elections, elect another, but all are controlled through the vast corporate world which funnels wealth to a select, untraceable few. Those we elect are allowed to play king or queen for a few years and then pal around the golf clubs “feeling” important and having a little wealth handed to them. Fascism is way easier to defeat.
Indeed. “Make more jobs” might as well read “make more slaves” but we know how chocolate gets rationed…