Fort Lewis owes public answers

John J. Towery has become an international mystery. The Army must not let him remain one.

Questions about Towery have swirled since late last month when an antiwar group announced to the Olympia City Council that the Fort Lewis civilian employee had spied on its members.

Since then, the story has spread from The New York Times to the Irish Times.

Olympia Port Militarization Resistance alleges that Towery, identifying himself as “John Jacob,” infiltrated the group in 2007. Only recently did its members inadvertently discover his true identity after their curiosity was piqued by City of Olympia public records.

Group members say Towery was privy to the inside workings of the group, which tries to block shipments of Stryker vehicles and other supplies at the ports of Olympia and Tacoma.

He allegedly was administrator of the group e-mail list, provided (sometimes inaccurate) information about military movements, attended protests and spent time at a Tacoma meeting place for anarchists.

We say “allegedly” because all that is known so far comes from antiwar activists. Towery isn’t talking and neither is the Army, except to say that it’s looking into the matter.

Here are three possible scenarios:

 • Towery, a criminal intelligence analyst for the post’s Force Protection Division, was acting on the orders of his superiors.

 • Towery was a rogue agent. (He reportedly told one PMR member that the base was investigating him for espionage.)

 • Towery is a disaffected Army employee who really does have anarchist leanings.

In any event, the Army owes the public an explanation. Laws and rules dating back to the post-Civil War era put restrictions on the Army conducting law enforcement or surveillance on civilians. This country was founded on the principle of civilian supremacy, and Americans have long guarded against the use of standing armies to quell political criticism of government.

Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School and heads the National Institute of Military Justice, told the Associated Press: “Domestic surveillance by the military is one of the third rails of our culture. It’s one of the things that separates the democratic society from other kinds of societies.”

If Towery is found to have been feeding information to local police agencies, his actions could validate the concerns that civil libertarians have voiced for years about the intelligence-sharing networks created in the wake of 9/11. The Army will have to explain how it justified his actions as legal.

If, on the contrary, Towery acted alone, then the Army must send a strong message that it won’t tolerate personnel going off the reservation.

Either way, the Army must be forthcoming –and soon. Until it starts talking, the public will be left to assume the worst: that the military is spying on civilians.

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