Letters to the Editor
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Homeland Security over the top
Glenn - below is a greatly edited version (<1000 words)of a letter I wrote to Rush Holt et al regarding an incident with homeland security and local police. I realize you are busy, but can you (or other civil liberties lawyers out there) provide guidance on how to proceed? Can police detain me, search my care, confiscate and copy personal documents, and seize my camera solely for taking pictures of chemical facilities that are directly related to my public interest work and legislative advocacy? I am a blogger for the State's largest newspaper, the Newark Star Ledger
January 17, 2008
US Representative Rush Holt
1019 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
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Gentlemen:
I am writing to document and bring a disturbing episode to your attention.
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On Tuesday, January 15, 2008, three investigators from the NJ Office of Homeland Security and the Hunterdon County Prosecutors Office knocked on the door of my home. They advised me that they were conducting an investigation of me based on a police report regarding photography of the Sunoco and Valero oil refineries in West Deptford and Paulsboro, on the afternoon of Saturday January 5, 2008.
On January 6, I posted a photograph of the Sunoco West Deptford refinery on my Star Ledger “NJ Voices” column under the headline: Oil refineries subsidized by Corzine global warming bill. Both refineries – at that time - were the subject of amendments to pending state legislation (ACS A-4559/SCS for S-2976) that was scheduled for votes the following Monday, January 7. Both facilities have large regulated and unregulated toxic chemical air emissions that represent unmonitored and unknown exposure health threats to the residents of surrounding “fence-line” neighborhoods, schools, day care centers, and youth athletic facilities.
Prior to my drive by photography of the Sunoco plant, I was told by credible sources that the Sunoco West Deptford refinery has a chronic pattern of violations of environmental laws and hazardous substance discharges to the environment. I was told that thee violations were not monitored, inspected, sampled, or enforced by the NJ DEP.
During my drive by tour, I observed unprotected and accessible chlorine labeled rail tanker cars just outside the Dupont Repauno plant. These rail cars were stored on tracks within very close proximity to a residential neighborhood and a day care center. I saw schools and day care centers on the perimeter of refineries and chemical facilities all along south Jersey Delaware River communities. I inhaled emissions from a chemical facility directly upwind and virtually right on top of a youth hockey rink, where young kids were literally hyperventilating hydrocarbons (the rink and fields are located just off N. School Street in Gibbstown). I walked a beach on the Delaware River (just below the Commodore Barry Bridge) and turned over rocks to find oil stains and oil saturated sand and soils. I walked several neighborhoods that live in the shadow of huge chemical facilities.
I am outraged by these conditions – my kids, who grew up and went to school in Hopewell Valley didn’t have to live with these risks. And neither should any kids.
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II) The January 5 incident
On January 5, 2008, at 2:30 pm, I stopped on the side of Route 130 in West Deptford to take pictures of the Sunoco refinery. Shortly after, I was approached by two Sunoco representatives (one named Bill Gigliott). Mr. Gigliott respectfully warned me that I was in a restricted zone, requested that I stop taking pictures, and advised me to remain at the scene because the police were on their way. We then discussed who I was and why I was taking the pictures.
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The Paulsboro supervisor demanded my camera. I refused and asked if I was under arrest. I was then order to leave my car and escorted to the back seat of a police car. Over my objections, my car was then searched, my personal documents were seized, and my camera was confiscated.
I was taken to police headquarters and questioned for almost an hour. Despite my explanation, I was asked by police to demonstrate that I was not a terrorist. Again, I took exception to this total disregard for my rights. I advised the officers to google my name and visit my organization’s website and the Star Ledger column where they could confirm my identity and read all about the prior work I had done on refineries and chemical plants.
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III) The January 15 incident
I spent approximately 30-45 minutes speaking with these investigators. I exhaustively repeated the same explanation I previously had provided on January 5, 2008 to the West Deptford and Paulsboro NJ local police. I explained who I was and why I was taking photo’s of the Sunoco and Valero refineries. I advised that all of this could be confirmed by reading my Star Ledger column (where I posted the Sunoco picture and wrote about it) or by doing a simple Google of my name, and that there was no need to visit and intrude upon my home.
Despite this explanation, in the course of the discussion one of the investigators mentioned the “Chechnya incident”. When I took offense to this insinuation, he responded that – because I had been observed taking pictures nears schools and chemical plants - I could be a member of a “terrorist cell” seeking “to strap a bomb on and blow up a chemical plant near a school”.
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IV) Concerns and request for investigation and response
I am concerned, however, about several aspects.
1) This is a gross waste of investigative resources by the Hunterdon County Prosecutor’s Office and the NJ Office of Homeland Security. It is a diversion from legitimate work.
2) I believe I was inappropriately and unprofessionally treated by West Deptford police.
3) I believe I was improperly detained and investigated by the Paulsboro police; that my privacy was violated; my car was illegally searched; and my documents and personal effects were illegally seized.
4) I feel intimidated by the NJ Homeland security investigation and feel that my privacy was violated and my personal reputation jeopardized by that investigation (e.g. contact of local police et al). The investigation also raises questions about whether it was retaliatory in nature for exercising political rights of dissent. On what basis and by whom was this investigation authorized?
5) I feel chilled from further professional and journalistic work on documenting risks posed by chemical and refinery facilities.
6) I am concerned that I may now have a “file” and that I may be on a terror suspect watch list; a no fly list; or suffer other surveillance and/or domestic spying abuses that have been amply documented. What records are maintained of this investigation? Am I on any suspect or watch lists?
For example, just last week, the House Homeland Security Committee questioned government officials about the government’s terrorist watch list. They asked why the list has ballooned to 860,000 people and continues to grow. Last month, a Government Accountability Office report found that false positives clog the list, and its large size effectively renders it useless. Directors from the Terrorist Screening Center, the Screening Coordination Center of the Department of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security and Justice Division of the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general of the Department of Justice were grilled by the committee on the shortcomings of the program.
7) I request that you investigate allegations of violations or environmental laws at the Sunoco West Deptford refinery, including the allegation that DEP is not enforcing repeated violations of state and federal environmental laws.
8) I request that you stop the practice of unprotected storage of chlorine tank cars near residential neighborhoods, like I observed outside the Dupont Repauno plant.
9) I request that you initiate a monitoring program of the air emissions and fence-line concentrations of regulated hazardous air pollutants emitted by chemical facilities and refineries.
10) I request that you invoke the current voluntary provisions of the NJ air pollution control permit regulations and issue an order to mandate that major industrial sources of air toxics conduct an air quality modeling analysis and health risk assessment of those regulated emissions.
11) I request that you have NJDEP and NJDoH conduct health surveys, consolidate data, and issue a Report that makes available public health data on morbidity and mortality incidence in communities proximate to chemical plants and refineries.
12) I request that you require public disclosure and public hearings on “off site consequence analysis” maps and documents for chemical facilities regulated under federal and state laws.
13) I request that you ask the NJ DEP to sample and remediate a beach (as necessary) on the Delaware River. The site is just below the Commodore Barry Bridge just south of the terminus of where Old Ferry Road meets the river.
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Sincerely,