Court Cases

Don’t Shoot Portland and ACLU of Oregon are two Oregon nonprofits dedicated to advocating for racial justice, police accountability, and the right to protest. In 2024, both organizations submitted public records requests to illuminate how Oregon TITAN Fusion Center (OFTC) works with other law enforcement agencies to monitor and surveil Oregonians engaged in lawful advocacy and protest — including for racial justice. The OTFC is a federally funded domestic surveillance program housed under the Oregon Department of Justice’s Criminal Intelligence Unit that works closely with federal law enforcement agencies like the increasingly notorious Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The OTFC operates as part of a vast nationwide network of about 80 similar fusion center programs nationwide. For two decades, OTFC has operated with little oversight or transparency while purporting to collect, analyze, and disseminate information about “terrorism” and crime in Oregon. However, the OTFC, like other fusion centers across the country, has a checkered history of abuses. ODOJ withheld nearly 2000 records from its response — largely the ones it said the ACLU would be “most interested in” — based on its “Third Agency Rule,” which it said requires OTFC to keep records it receives from other agencies confidential. Don’t Shoot Portland and ACLU of Oregon sued, arguing that Third Agency Rule cannot displace ODOJ’s obligations under the Public Records Law. The disputed records include “Criminal Intelligence Unit Bulletin[s]” issued by the Portland Police Bureau that name Don’t Shoot Portland (sometimes referred to as Don’t Shoot PDX) and “Criminal Intelligence Unit Protest [and] Significant Event Information Briefs” that name Sean Kealiher, a founding organizer of Don’t Shoot PDX’s community action plan who was killed in 2019 at age 23. The existence of the records suggests additional evidence of OTFC’s improper surveillance of people and groups engaged in protected political and noncriminal activities. Plaintiffs urge the court to reject ODOJ’s reliance on the Third Agency Rule as blanket authority to withhold records from the public and to order that records be disclosed. The people of Oregon deserve transparency about how state, local, and federal police cooperation affects their rights and freedoms.

The ACLU of Oregon filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit challenging DHS’s use of chemical munitions during the 2020 racial justice protests, in violation of environmental law.

We represent volunteer street medics in a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals Service, and the City of Portland for targeting and attacking them at Portland protests against police brutality.