Public comment: No fence around the Federal Building

Presenter: Public comments asked the City to stop a proposed fence around the Federal Building. This story begins with Jane speaking on March 9. 

Jane: Hello, I am here today to ask that the city not approve any permits to construct fences around the Federal Building where ICE operates out of. 

This is a clear attempt to silence protestors and for ICE to continue committing atrocities in greater secrecy. In fact, one of our neighbors, a young woman, was abducted from that very building today.

They know what they are doing is wrong. They’re kidnapping our neighbors and violating their right to due process, forcibly entering our neighbor’s homes without warrants and violating their Fourth Amendment rights in the process.

There was an ICE whistleblower, Ryan Schwank, former assistant chief counsel for ICE, who has come out and confirmed that ICE agents are being trained to violate the Fourth Amendment—to break the law. It is those very ICE agents that are operating out of the field ICE office here in Eugene, the same ones that kidnapped a young woman today.

I ask that you do not permit any fence to be built. Denying a permit will allow Eugene to continue practicing their First Amendment rights at the building that we fund.

It will prevent ICE and DHS from hiding behind a fence while committing unconstitutional atrocities, and it will prevent creating accessibility issues for folks with disabilities. 

We deserve the right to know what’s happening in that building, and we deserve the right to speak out against it—on the sidewalk, in the plaza, and in the courtyard.

Don’t approve any permits for a fence. Defend the rights of your constituents and get ICE out of Eugene. Thank you.

Presenter: Wyn Manselle:

Wyn Manselle: I’ll just start out by once again asking: Have we heard anything back from Flock about the deletion of our data? Have they reached out to us at all? And if they have, what proof have they provided us that the data has been deleted?

But kind of accidentally in the vein of what Jane just spoke about: 404 Media recently through a FOIA request discovered that CPB has been using location data that they have bought from third-party data vendors—advertisers—in order to locate people of vulnerable communities in order, you know, to hunt them down.

ICE has been known to have similar data and while I know legally we in the state have some protection against that, I’m a big proponent of acting when you know how to act.

And also someone I deeply respect said to me once that, ‘One of the greatest gifts that we can give one another is the gift of knowledge.’ So I am going to share with you, one, a copy of the story, even though this is freely available, 404 Media was kind of cool about that on this one.

But I made a little guide that I have shared with my community before, especially, you know, being a member of a vulnerable community, about how to deactivate your advertiser ID on both your Android and your iPhone. (Android user myself but respect to you iPhone users.) 

There should be enough copies for all of you along with links to other sources on other privacy items that you can hand out.

This is by no means like going to be blankets, like super protection on your privacy, but I figure, I share with you, you share with others. You do it for yourself, get some practice, share it out, further out and do a little something to protect the members of our vulnerable communities. 

Presenter: Glenn O.: 

Glenn O: I’m here to speak today about the fence that’s going to be going around the Federal Building. 

I think that there’s a really strange contradiction between—what was it, a month ago?—when there was a crisis called, and funding was going towards the affected communities.

And then now we’re helping them build a fence around their building so that they can do it in secret. And it seems contradictory. We saw a young woman be abducted today, and now I’m trying to think about how that would be seen with a fence up, and it’s a really clear attempt at taking away our First Amendment rights to protest that building as well as obstruct any accountability from that building.

Police (Chief) Skinner himself said, we are building this so that you know where and when you should be protesting, and that if you cross that line, bad things may happen. That’s a paraphrase.

But either way, building a fence to articulate when and where we can protest? And there’s something so fundamentally wrong with that.

I think that there’s also something wrong with saying that, like, ‘If you cross this line, bad things are going to happen.’ The inside of that courtyard has been a place for protest for years and years, since before I moved here over 15 years ago.

We’re talking about blocking off places that people have used as free speech plazas for so long, and the fact that they are just so abhorrently afraid at all of the atrocities that they do in that building, to want to build a fence around it, I think is a joke.

And I think that approving any permits and helping them get the materials down there and really just assisting them in any way is a really gross conflict with the crisis that you all voted.

Shelly Devine: Hi everyone. Shelly Devine. I’m wondering why the local EPD is showing up wearing face masks alongside CPB. That’s a new one. 

And I’m wondering what in the Christo Fascist Secret Police Force is going on here? Since when and how are we normalizing concealed identity for our law enforcement officers?

What is their current mission status and how does adopting the controversial accessory of identity concealment and looking like ICE agents help them conduct their business of protecting and serving this community?

In what dystopian hellscape do EPD officers wear and normalize the uniform of a lawless and unaccountable group of known violent domestic terrorists?

If you cruise around looking like a fascist collaborator and a pillar of support for the crime syndicate regime, well, something about it walks like a duck.

So we’ve clocked a serious and disturbing diffusion of responsibility occurring within the ranks of local power players. And the question I have tonight is:  Where does it stop? Where does the buck stop? Who, if anyone, is actually in charge of anything? And if the city’s elected cannot manage or outright refuse to prevent ginormous behemoth monstrosities of fascist collaboration from setting up shop here, what are we even doing?

We want CAHOOTS back, not Amazon. We want CAHOOTS, not licking boots. We want CAHOOTS. Not giant space mirrors. Okay? Not a new and different company for mass surveillance. 

We want people over profits. We want the well-being of everyone in the community and not the privileged few. Tell Amazon we’ll take an equal profit share amongst the residents of Eugene and we’ll see how that lead balloon goes over.

And more often than not, showing up here and asking for what we need feels like begging for breadcrumbs and nobody wants crumbs or even just a slice or an entire loaf to hoard and devour. We want to make bread collaboratively, and there’s enough for everyone. It is possible. 

Chloe Longworth: Hi, I’m Chloe Longworth, I use she/they pronouns and today I want to talk about the old Federal Building, and how DHS is planning on building a fence around that building. I bring it up here because DHS is either going to, or has already asked for permits from the city of Eugene to help them construct the fence.

And I would like to say: Please, city of Eugene, do not give them permits to construct the fence. That is bad for a number of reasons. The first one is that it’s, you know, DHS bad. DHS bad. 

Second one that I don’t think has been mentioned yet is that the Federal Building is right across the street from 5th Street Public Market, which is a pretty popular tourist spot here in Eugene.

And if you’re looking to have a good time in downtown, some shopping, have some good food and whatnot, and you’re walking around downtown and suddenly you see this fortress across the street with this big giant fence and all that crap around it, it’s not going to look very good.

This is not really a good idea for Eugene to allow a fence, to even to help the construction of a fence like that, just ’cause it ruined the visual aspect of the city, which is pretty strong in Eugene, you know, trees and all that. I’m sure that there won’t be any trees on that fence.

So I would really like it if the city of Eugene would have a bit of a backbone and not obey in advance by approving permits that the DHS is going to ask for.

Paula: Francis Starr O’Leary:

Francis Starr O’Leary: Hi there. My message tonight on the council’s actions regarding federal immigration enforcement is similar to the messages I’ve been delivering on ALPRs, and that is that I’m glad that you’ve done what you have and I really mean that, but it just isn’t enough.

Yes, ICE and their cronies have a political and rhetorical aspect, which you have confronted in those realms, but they also have a physical agenda, which needs to be confronted physically.

That is to say what they’re doing in the streets is abhorrent. And what are you doing with the power you wield in the streets to stop them? You have this massive, well-funded tool at your disposal: the police department.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that the police simply go and arrest all the ICE agents. The federal supremacy clause prevents that. But if this is a humanitarian crisis, as you all have acknowledged, it’s a good bet that someone is overstepping their mandate and breaking the law.

Now there’s increased police presence in high-crime areas. Police are known for trailing suspected criminals while building a case. Police have done house calls to let activists know that they’re building a file on them.

Al Capone went down for tax evasion. We can’t get these guys for going into an employee only area in a business, or we can’t get them for trading out the license plates on their cars. What I’m advocating for is blind justice.

If these thugs were part of any other gang, the police would have a special task force to take them down. Instead, the police are defending the gang clubhouse and it’s time to reassess that arrangement.

I’ll conclude with a quotation from famous abolitionist and martyr for the cause of freedom, John Brown: ‘These men are all talk. What we need is action—action!’ Thank you. 

Presenter: After ICE reportedly abducted a woman in downtown Eugene March 9, public comments ask the city not to allow a fence around the Federal Building.