Vol. 76/No. 43      November 26, 2012

On Oct. 25, Pfeiffer was served a federal grand jury subpoena by two FBI agents. The hearing date, originally set for Nov. 7, was subsequently postponed until Dec. 14.

Pfeiffer is the fifth political activist to be subpoenaed since July in what the FBI claims is an ongoing investigation targeting area anarchist groups for “a violent crime in Seattle on May Day.”

Standing on their constitutional rights, the activists are refusing to answer questions about their politics and political associates to help an FBI probe into area activists.

“I knew my fate right away: 18 months in SeaTac Federal Detention Center,” Pfeiffer said in an Oct. 29 statement announcing his refusal to testify. “Some have said the Grand Jury is about trying to repress people’s political opinions and free speech and no doubt this is true.”

On May 1 a federal courthouse door in Seattle was damaged and some bank and shop windows were broken by individuals dressed in black.

The Seattle police arrested eight people for vandalism damages unrelated to the courthouse door and dropped charges on five. The other three pleaded guilty; two are serving suspended sentences and one spent two months in jail.

May Day was a national day of marches and rallies attended by thousands across the country demanding legalization for undocumented workers.

Some 1,500 people marched in Seattle in an immigrant rights action organized by the Immigration Reform and Social Justice Committee, backed by student and religious groups and more than a dozen unions. Occupy Seattle organized another action.

“We are working with members of Occupy Seattle to make each of our events both safe and effective,” the committee said in a statement released April 29. “We in no way encourage the dissemination of any information that encourages our participants to engage in reckless, poorly thought-out activities.”

Prior to May 1, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force began spying on a number of anarchists in Portland, including tracking six of them while they traveled to Seattle.

In September and October Matthew Duran, 24, and Katherine Olejnik, 23, of Olympia, Wash., and Leah-Lynn Plante, 24, of Portland, were convicted of civil contempt for refusing to answer questions before the grand jury about their political beliefs and the names of other political activists they know. They were told they would be held in the SeaTac detention center for 18 months, until the grand jury session ends, unless they recanted and answered all the government’s questions.

Plante was released Oct. 17 after seven days in solitary confinement. Duran and Olejnik remain in detention.

Dennison Williams from Portland was also subpoenaed to an earlier grand jury. He released a statement together with Plante refusing to cooperate. Williams’ subpoena was then dropped, reported the Committee Against Political Repression.

More than 60 people attended a panel discussion Nov. 5 at the Seattle University School of Law protesting the Northwest grand jury and discussing the ongoing fight against its use. The event was sponsored by the law school’s National Lawyers Guild.

More than 200 community organizations have signed a letter of support for those targeted by the FBI in the Northwest and in a similar attack in the Midwest aimed at antiwar and political activists in Chicago and Minneapolis in 2010.
 
 
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