Publication date: 04/01/2002
San Francisco Examiner

Adversaries go inside ADL's spying operation
   This is the first of a two-part series on the hidden workings of the Anti-Defamation League and how three Bay Area activists were able to uncover a spy operation that reached into the San Francisco Police Department. Today: Paper trail of deceit.

By Dan Evans
Of The Examiner Staff

   Locked in a nondescript computer database, a shadowy operative named Roy Bullock kept file upon file on liberal San Francisco Jews who disagreed with Israeli policies.

   The files included Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, addresses, phone numbers and group memberships. Some of the information was sold to foreign governments, including Israeli and South African intelligence groups.

   Shockingly, Bullock was in the employ of a civil rights group whose motto is "fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism": the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Numerous targets of the ADL -- who drew parallels to COINTELPRO, the FBI's tainted domestic surveillance program -- say the profiling and covert activities continue to this day.

   "They are continuing to gather facts," said Abdeen Jabara, a Manhattan attorney and former president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "That, of course, is a euphemism for what we say is private spying."

   Not only were liberal Jews a target, but information also was kept on labor unions, pro-Palestinian organizations, anti-apartheid groups, American Arabs and anti-Semites. After the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke the case in 1993, a number of these targets filed suit against the ADL. The last lawsuit was recently settled.

   The settlement in February marked the first time any of the organization's victims were allowed to speak out. Usually, the ADL demands plaintiffs keep quiet as a condition of any settlement.

   Without those constraints, victims Jeffrey Blankfort, Steve Zeltzer and Anne Poirier are revealing the underbelly of an organization that previously had successfully shielded itself from condemnation. They are using the ADL's own spy as a fulcrum.

   Bullock's relationship with Blankfort and Zeltzer began when he infiltrated a pro-Palestinian group started by the two, both of whom are Jewish. Once inside, Bullock collected and sold information about the two men to the ADL and, possibly the Mossad, the foreign arm of Israeli intelligence.

   Although Bullock never met Poirier, he may have sold information on her organization to the South African government. The woman, who lives in Berkeley, ran a scholarship program for South African exiles in the early 1990s. During the course of her lawsuit against the ADL, she discovered the ADL's operative had sold confidential information to a South African agent in San Francisco for $15,000.

   Poirier had never done any work relating to the Middle East, and she was astounded when she found out that the ADL had kept tabs on her. During her nine-year court fight with the group, she found out more than she needed to know about its operation, and now nothing much surprises her.

   "They gathered information on anti-apartheid activities," she said, "anyone the organization felt, by definition, would be against Israel because they were too left-wing."

  [b]A few files, so what?[/b]

   The fact the ADL has a file on a group doesn't imply clandestine activities, said San Francisco regional director Jonathan Bernstein. He resents the implication of the word spying, saying it implies people were being followed around and trailed. That simply wasn't the case, he said, though he acknowledged he never met Bullock.

   "We have files on the NAACP because we've done collaborative projects with them," he said. "They probably have files on the ADL, too."

   In Bernstein's eyes, the group's fact-finding operations are one of its most important missions.

   Much of the time, the "missions" are nothing more than gleaning information from media reports, he said. People employed by the ADL do attend public meetings to keep an eye on people, just as other journalists do.

   The area's top boss, however, repeatedly sidestepped questions on whether fact-finders employed subterfuge to get information. The fact that some of the people being watched by the ADL were Jewish was immaterial, Bernstein said.

   Other civil rights groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, do similar things on a limited scale, he said.

   A representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is headquartered in Birmingham, could not be reached for comment.

   Because the ADL has 30 regional offices, the organization is much better equipped to ferret out anti-Semitism and other racist behavior.

   "It can help us to respond to hate activity before someone gets hurt," Bernstein said. "That's the ultimate objective."

   But are there times when fact-finding becomes a civil rights violation?

   The San Francisco office of the American Civil Liberties Union, a group one might expect to have a dim view on the tactics employed by the ADL, refused to comment on the group's fact-finding activities. Nor would spokeswoman Rachel Swain give a reason for the silence.

  [b]Ongoing complaints[/b]

   Groups have been saying for years that the ADL isn't the civil rights organization it claims to be, but no one has been listening. Mostly, it's because those groups have been thinly-veiled anti-Semites, such as the Liberty Lobby, or hate groups such as White Aryan Resistance and the KKK.

   But, as vile as some of these groups are, there is a significant amount of evidence that their vitriol is not unfounded. For at least four decades, the ADL continuously has tracked and spied on groups it considers not only a threat to the Jewish community, but to the state of Israel.

   Hussein Ibish certainly thinks so. Ibish is the spokesman for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee -- an organization that is, in many ways, the Arab counterpart to the ADL. Though certainly at odds with many Israeli policies, the ADC is not anti-Semitic, and plays a rather moderate role.

   "Was the ADL spying on people?" asked Ibish, quickly answering his own question. "Certainly in San Francisco they were. We know they were engaging in illegal activities to gain information. They, and their operatives, were working hand-in-glove with South African intelligence and Israeli intelligence."

  [b]Meet Mr. Spy[/b]

   By his own admission, Bullock had been working off the books as a fact-finder for the ADL since the mid-1960s. He would infiltrate not only openly anti-Semitic groups, but also pro-Palestinian and anti-apartheid organizations, usually under false pretenses. Bullock, who is not Jewish, would then pass that information along to the ADL.

   He received information about his targets from former San Francisco Police Inspector Tom Gerard, who fled to the Philippines after being indicted in 1994 for illegal use of a police computer. Gerard's current whereabouts are unknown.

   Bullock, who no longer does undercover work for the organization, declined to be interviewed for this article.

   Nobody could have known about the extent of Bullock's surveillance, if police had not seized his computer database in April 1993. It contained thousands of files on liberal Jewish San Franciscans, Arab-Americans, anti-apartheid activists, anti-Semitic groups, and plain ol' white racists.

   On April 8, 1993, armed with this information, police in San Francisco and Los Angeles searched the ADL offices in those two cities. In San Francisco, roughly 10 banker's boxes of information -- 75 percent of which officers said was illegally obtained -- were seized.

   A majority of data in those boxes confirmed police suspicions that it had come from Bullock's computer. On that computer was information on 9,876 people, including 1,394 driver's licenses. The files were divided into five categories: "Pinko," "Right," Arabs," "Skins," and "ANC," the last standing for African National Congress.

   Bullock also told the FBI that he had information on various labor groups. These groups included: the San Francisco Labor Council, the Oakland Educators Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Irish Northern Aid, the International Indian Treaty Council and the Asian Law Caucus.

  [b]Lawsuits galore[/b]

   After the SFPD raid on the ADL offices, then-District Attorney Arlo Smith filed a lawsuit against the organization to stop the spying. The suit was settled that November. Though the ADL acknowledged no wrongdoing, the group agreed to stop using police to get confidential information. The league also agreed to pay $75,000 to a fund used to help stop hate crimes.

   On April 18, 1993, 19 people who Bullock kept files on sued the ADL in San Francisco Superior Court. Pete McCloskey, a former Republican congressman from San Mateo County, was the group's attorney. His wife, Helen, was one of the original plaintiffs.

   A few months later, in October, the ADC slapped its Jewish counterpart with a similar lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court. The ADC claimed the ADL passed along information on the group to the Israeli government. The ADC's suit was settled in October 1996.

   The ADL agreed to pay $175,000 toward the Arab group's legal costs. The ADL also agreed to contribute $25,000 to a foundation, administered by the ADL and the ADC, dedicated to improving relations between Jews and Arabs. The ADL was able to deny all wrongdoing.

  [b]Journalistic enterprise?[/b]

   The McCloskey case, however, would drag on. The main point of contention in that case was whether the ADL could be considered a journalistic enterprise, a point won in court by the ADL.

   The ADL publishes hundreds of newsletters, papers and books on a wide range of subjects, attorney David Goldstein said. As with any other journalistic enterprise, it contended it was not required to release its confidential information or sources.

   After a 1998 ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal, giving the ADL journalistic protection, 14 of the remaining 17 plaintiffs -- two had died in the interim -- dropped their cases against the ADL.

   On Feb. 22, 2002, the ADL settled with Blankfort, Zeltzer and Poirier.

   What held up the process, said McCloskey, was his clients' refusal to sign a confidentially agreement. The three felt they had been viciously wronged, he said, and wanted to publicize that fact.

   With the settlement, each of the three plaintiffs received about $50,000. None of the three, or McCloskey, believes the ADL will stop their spying ways.

   "It was settled partially out of fatigue," said the attorney. "Everyone figured it might be best if we all just moved on."

   Even if the case had continued, said Goldstein, there is a debate over how much the three plaintiffs could prove they had been injured. Most of the contested information consisted of Social Security and driver's license numbers, which are hardly difficult items to find.

   Nine years later, McCloskey is still angry about the case and wants the federal government to revoke the group's tax-exempt status.

   Since they obviously are working in conjunction with the Israeli government, he said, they should register as such. Referring to themselves as an education group, said the attorney, is simply a sham.
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Good for congressman McCloskey. Turns out they are connected to Israeli intelligence. Imagine that. [rolleyes] Perhaps they should have their non-profit educational status revoked.

Funniest part is (besides paying off the plaintiffs) they had to give $75k to a fund to stop hate crimes *LOL*

I guess I would be labelled as 'Right' on their little list...

This should come as no big suprise to anyone who know's much about the ADL. The ADL, JDL, and the SPLC are a bunch of crooked outfits making tons of money by exploiting their "causes". Spying on, and extorting people who don't agree with them are common business pratices for them. And have been for a long time.

But again, anyone who dares bring this to light are branded with being racist and anti-semetic.

They're just a tad bit sleazier than Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

But not by much.

ADL DEPLORES HOUSE VOTE TO REPEAL BAN ON ASSAULT WEAPONS AS A BACKWARD STEP

New York, NY, March 22, 1996...The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today deplored the vote by the House of Representatives to repeal the ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, and called it "a step backwards in our national struggle to combat the violence which plagues America."

ADL National Chairman David H. Strassler and ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman issued the following statement:

The vote by the House of Representatives to repeal the ban on semi-automatic assault weapons is a misguided and cynical act of obsequience to the gun lobby which is contrary to the best interests of our nation. It is, in particular, a step backwards in our national struggle to combat the violence which plagues America.

As an organization devoted to exposing and counteracting anti-Semites, racists, extremists, and others who represent a threat to our democratic principles, it has long been our view that our security concerns as Americans and as Jews are best served by making firearms more difficult for white supremacists, neo-Nazi skinheads, Klansmen, militias and other extremists to obtain, rather than by encouraging their proliferation.

The assault weapons ban which the House would abandon has been a useful tool not only to combat violence in America's cities, but also to counter the threat posed by the organized hate movement. It is hard to imagine, in a season of tragedies spawned by terrorism in this country and abroad, how this House action serves any constructive purpose whatsoever.

We will work to ensure that this repeal is not replicated in the U.S. Senate.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

ADL Reaffirms Support for Gun Control Initiatives During National Policymaking Session in Philadelphia

New York, New York, June 8, 1999 … [b]The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has reaffirmed support for gun control initiatives "designed to make it more difficult for extremists as well as children to acquire and use guns and other dangerous weapons in this country."[/b]

At a meeting last week of the National Executive Committee, ADL’s top policymaking body, in Philadelphia, members adopted a resolution in support of efforts to expand the regulation of firearms and other weapons.

[b]ADL’s support for gun control measures at the state and federal level goes back to 1967.[/b]

"While we have always supported legislation that attempts to address the problems of extremism and gun violence in our society, the recent school shootings in Littleton, Colo. and Conyers, Ga. have focused public attention on another troubling dimension of the problem – the ease with which young people are able to obtain guns in this country," said Howard P. Berkowitz, ADL National Chairman, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Strong gun laws are the only way we can act immediately and decisively to hopefully prevent another tragedy from happening in our schools."

In reaffirming support for gun control initiatives, ADL urged Congress to support legislation proposed by President Clinton to further restrict gun sales. The legislation would require safety locks, background checks at gun shows, and a ban of high-capacity ammunition clips.

I demand this thread be locked due to it's anti-semitism and racist overtones.[;)] [}:D]

What exactly does defaming jews have to do with the 2nd amendment? The only conclusion that can be drawn from the above statement is that guns must be outlawed because they could be used to kill jews (and/or that we are all anti-semites). Is anyone else disgusted by the above ad hominem attack?

People like Foxman BREED anti-semites with their hatespeech and disrespect for our freedoms. Perhaps they do so to make their organization needed and relevant in the 21st century. They are clearly a threat to anyone who treasures their freedom and do a disservice to even jews that may favor gun control measures.



Lock the thread? Hell, they'd like to lock us all up for dissenting.

I agree. Anyone not agreeing with the ADL can be forgiven by sending a $300 donation to the organization.