PORTLAND, Ore. — This city has staked out its independence from the federal government loudly and often.
Staff members of then-President George H.W. Bush nicknamed Portland “Little Beirut” for the protests that greeted him whenever he made an appearance.
When his son George W. Bush arrived in town for a fundraiser in 2003, the mayor sent a bill to the White House in an unsuccessful attempt to recoup more than $100,000 in police overtime and extra expenses to keep demonstrators in check.
But when it comes to counterterrorism, the city may be on the brink of relinquishing its one-of-a-kind stance.
In 2005, Portland became the only major metropolitan area in the country to withdraw its police officers from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, an intelligence-gathering partnership between local and federal law enforcement.
The City Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to reverse its decision in the wake of a highprofile terrorism scare in the city.
At the time of the 4-1 vote to withdraw, city officials cited concerns about lack of local oversight over the two Portland officers assigned to the task force.
Then-Mayor Tom Potter, a former police officer and chief, said he feared participation in federal investigations would put the local officers in the position of violatingstate laws that forbid collecting and retaining information about the political, religious and social activities of people not suspected of committing a crime.
The issue remained dormant until November, when Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, was arrested and charged with plotting to set off a bomb during the city’s Christmas treelighting ceremony in Pioneer Courthouse Square.
Portland’s withdrawal from the task force was never complete. The police chief remains part of the task force’s executive group, receiving periodic briefings, and Portland police officers can be pulled in to work with the FBI. But the day-to-day working relationship is gone.
In the case of the Christmas-tree bomb plot, the FBI briefed Portland’s police chief about the investigation in September, when it was nearly at an end. The chief had to sign a nondisclosure form, and Mayor Sam Adams was not notified of the case until three hours after Mohamud’s arrest.
National authorities and activists are watching Portland’s decision with interest. Top officials from the FBI and Justice Department on one side and the American Civil Liberties Union on the other pleaded their respective cases before the Portland City Council on Tuesday.
Law enforcement officials cited the potential for Portland’s airport, river port and other facilities to be used to launch terrorist attacks that would strike elsewhere in the nation.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 02/21/2011