FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Tracked Longshore Union Protest Activity In 2020
Newly uncovered records obtained by HardPressed show that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle monitored the protest activities of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in 2020.
Port of Seattle Police Department (POSPD) Joint Terrorism Task Force officer Josh Landers wrote that he was tracking intelligence concerning a report on Black Lives Matter activists who were threatening to "shutdown" ports.
Information, sent from Lander's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) email address, included what appears to be a clipping of intelligence information, stating that, "on 19 June 2020, Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists plan to hold protests and "shutdown" ports operating throughout the Pacific coast of the United States. The action is being held in protest against police violence against racial minorities. Activists associated with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will also be taking part in the actions."
The Port of Seattle told HardPressed that "as a general practice, Port of Seattle Police regularly monitor for any demonstrations or other disruptions that could potentially impact Port operations."
Landers' email stated that protest actions were planned for Pier 46 in Seattle and at the Port of Oakland. He also forwarded an ILWU press release to POSPD command.
Landers also asked another POSPD commander if he could forward detailed plans of the ILWU's protest action, obtained from the port police commander's attendance on a Northwest Seaport Association conference call, to the FBI and to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The port police commander approved the release of the information.
Those protest details included, where ILWU were planning to protest, the protest route, timing, muster points, pre-march queuing, protest attendance, and more.
In Seattle, the protest itself went off without incident.
ILWU Local 19 did not answer their phone after HardPressed called for comment. HardPressed also sent a fax to ILWU Local 19 with the information in this report, however did not receive a response.
The FBI Seattle did not respond to a request for comment.
In the early 1950s, federal law enforcement targeted IWLU Local 37 members, accusing them of communist party membership and sought to deport them. "At the height of the McCarthyite hysteria more than 30 members of Local 37 were arrested and threatened with deportation to the Philippines," writes David Bacon within an essay on the roots of farmworker unions.
Decades later, friends, family and others continue to push the FBI to release its files related to the use of an informant at the scene of a 1981 double murder of two ILWU union leaders.