The JTTF isn’t perfect by any means. In fact, it is full of clueless dopes whose heads are filled with politically correct nonsense about the motivating ideology of the terrorists they’re trying to counter. There are so many such people in it that the idea that it is targeting innocent Muslims is absurd.
“It has sowed a complete distrust between the Muslim community and the city of Portland.”
The Muslim community should be working to win the trust of law enforcement officials, not the other way around. It wasn’t JTTF officers who perpetrated over 30,000 terror attacks worldwide since 9/11.
We thoroughly appreciate how many groups are standing up for Muslims in Portland against the JTTF. We see you and we love you. #NoJTTF
— CAIR-Oregon (@CAIROregon) February 13, 2019
“Portland Withdraws From Federal Joint Terrorism Task Force,” by Amelia Templeton, OPB, February 13, 2019:
Portland is out of the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force again.
The Portland City Council voted 3-2 Wednesday to withdraw the city’s police officers from the JTTF, a partnership between federal agencies and local law enforcement.
Commissioners Jo Ann Hardesty, Amanda Fritz and Chloe Eudaly supported the change. They worry there is not enough civilian oversight to ensure Portland officers abide by civil rights and say there isn’t enough evidence to show the task force has made Portland safer.
“The current president has made clear his animosity toward Muslims, immigrants and people of color,” said Fritz, noting that the FBI has not followed through on promises to provide more, regular information on the group’s work since Portland re-entered the partnership several years ago. “I found it hard to trust the JTTF under President Obama. It’s impossible now.”
The vote is a significant win for Hardesty, the newest city commissioner who ran last year on a promise to get Portland out of the federal task force.
“For a whole year, I talked about this on the campaign trail, and everywhere I went, people were concerned about whether or not their data was collected and used in a way that was against Oregon state law,” she said. “We are here today because I am about keeping promises.”
Hardesty and Fritz had made their positions clear before Wednesday’s meeting. Eudaly ended up being the deciding vote and said she does not have confidence city leaders have enough oversight to prevent Portland officers from engaging in police work that targets immigrants and other groups….
Portland’s vibrant left-wing activist community turned out in force at Wednesday’s meeting to show their support for withdrawal. The council chamber was standing-room only with an overflow room filled as well.
Public testimony was overwhelmingly in favor of withdrawal. Of the more than 30 people who spoke, all but two urged the council to pull the city’s two police officers from the JTTF.
The people who spoke largely repeated familiar arguments regarding the task force, noting the FBI’s history of surveillance of left-wing activists and condemning the federal government’s zero tolerance immigration enforcement policy and practice of separating families.
Millie Hobaish, the daughter of a Yemeni immigrant, told the council she is a firsthand witness to the mistreatment of Muslims and immigrants by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Portland: “My family’s home was raided when I was 10 years old after several years of very heavy surveillance,” Hobaish told city leaders. “My father was detained on charges that he was not allowed to know for the first portion of the trial.”
Hobaish said a judge eventually found the charges against her father unsubstantiated and threw them out….
“It has sowed a complete distrust between the Muslim community and the city of Portland,” she said. “With that I urge that you guys vote against remaining in the JTTF.”