San Francisco Probes Private Spy Network

SAN FRANCISCO — A private intelligence network with ties to an American Jewish group and South Africa is under investigation for illegally tapping into police sources and collecting information on the political activities of more than 12,000 people, authorities say.

As part of the investigation, San Francisco authorities say they have confiscated files containing personal information on a wide range of political activists, ethnic advocates, writers and other U.S. residents--at least 6,000 of them living in Southern California. Much of the information is allegedly from confidential government databanks and police agencies.

One former San Francisco police intelligence officer, who allegedly funneled police files to the spy operation, is under investigation on allegations that he sold confidential information about hundreds of people to the South African government. After he was questioned in November by the FBI, which began the investigation, he fled to the Philippines.

Most of the information, however, appears to have been collected on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League, a nationwide organization that is dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry. Officials of the organization, as well as its paid undercover operatives, could face charges of gathering intelligence illegally, authorities said, but spokesmen for the league denied any wrongdoing.

“What we’re looking at is the violation of the statute that prohibits the sale, use and dispersal of confidential information,” San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith said.

A portion of the information in the files appears to have come from the Los Angeles Police Department, Smith said. Los Angeles police initially declined to cooperate with San Francisco authorities in the investigation and refused to assist in a December search of the Anti-Defamation League office in Los Angeles.

“They felt it was a sensitive matter and they didn’t wish to cooperate,” said San Francisco Assistant Dist. Atty. John Dwyer, who is overseeing the case. “It’s the first time I’ve seen that happen in my career.”

Top officials of the Los Angeles Police Department declined to discuss the matter. “It’s an ongoing investigation involving another police agency,” said Sgt. Mike Williams, an aide to Chief of Staff Ronald C. Banks.

However at least one member of the Los Angeles Police Commission, which oversees the police administration, said that he believes the department should not only assist investigators in San Francisco, but that they should also begin an internal inquiry to find out how the LAPD documents were leaked.

“I want to find out what is the basis for the department’s reaction not to cooperate,” Police Commissioner Stanley K. Sheinbaum said. “Unless I’m given a good explanation why we shouldn’t cooperate, I think we should. And of equal concern is how these files got away.”

Officials of the Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco and Los Angeles have cooperated with the investigation, allowing police to search their offices without a warrant. They acknowledged that their organization worked with police in collecting information on people believed to be anti-Semitic or involved in hate crimes, but they insisted that they did not violate the law.

“It has been a regular practice of the ADL to trade hate crime-related information with police departments,” said Richard Hirschhaut, executive director of the organization’s Northern California office. “It has always been our understanding and our credo in conducting our fact-finding work that we conduct our work from a high ethical plateau and in conjunction with the law.”

In the past, both the Los Angeles and San Francisco police departments have come under criticism for collecting intelligence files on activists, political figures or elected officials who spoke out on controversial issues. Both departments have been chastised and intelligence-gathering operations have been ordered curtailed.

On Thursday, The Times reported that an internal LAPD investigation found no physical evidence to support allegations that the Organized Crime Intelligence Division spied on politicians and celebrities.

But the San Francisco district attorney’s office suspects that certain police officers have been working illegally with an intelligence network that operates nationwide in connection with the Anti-Defamation League.

The computer files seized by police include information on 12,000 people from across the United States and data obtained from several police agencies, including the Portland, Ore., Police Department.

“The ADL is running this all over the country,” said one source close to the investigation. “The ADL set up this great system for collecting information, and South Africa tapped into it.”

Portland police deny any wrongdoing and say the information they passed on to the Anti-Defamation League was available to the public. But San Francisco Police Capt. John Willett said, “We’re looking at whether other police agencies have done anything inappropriate.”

Arab-Americans are concerned that some of the files have been passed on to the Israeli government and its intelligence agency, Mossad. One person among the 12,000, an Arab-American activist living in Chicago, was recently arrested while traveling in Israel, but authorities said they do not know if there was a connection.

Many details of the investigation are still murky because a San Francisco judge has placed most of the evidence under seal until charges are filed, perhaps next month, authorities said. But the San Francisco Police Commission has ordered the release of individual files to those who were allegedly spied on.

Much of the case revolves around the mysterious figure of Roy Bullock, who has spent the past 40 years as a free-lance investigator and undercover operative.

According to investigators, Bullock, 58, worked on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League as well as other groups and amassed extensive files on Arab-Americans, supporters of the African National Congress, Black Muslims, Irish-Americans, skinheads, neo-Nazis, the National Lawyers Guild, left-wing groups and other activists in the United States.

Authorities said Bullock worked closely with police officers from various departments and collected such confidential information as criminal records, intelligence files, driver’s license photographs, home addresses and car registrations.

Some of the information could have been helpful in staking out individual homes and conducting surveillance. Other confidential information could have been valuable to foreign governments concerned about the political activities of visitors from the United States.

“People talk about whether in the Computer Age privacy is being done away with, but you don’t think about the DMV giving your driver’s license to some police officer who gives it to an organization that doesn’t like you,” said Dwyer, the assistant district attorney. “This practice has to stop. You can’t let the government collect all this information and give it to whomever they choose.”

Bullock could not be reached for comment, but investigators said he was paid by the Anti-Defamation League through a Los Angeles law firm that acted as an intermediary. Officials of the Anti-Defamation League would not confirm or deny Bullock’s association with the organization.

Among the organizations he allegedly infiltrated were skinhead and Arab-American groups, where he gathered detailed information on members.

In one case, his true identity was discovered by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee when a Jewish guest attended a recent meeting in the Bay Area and recognized him as a member of the Anti-Defamation League.

“Usually we don’t screen our members,” said Nazih Bayda, executive director of the Arab-American group’s Los Angeles office. “He was very active. He used to go to events. He never missed a meeting.”

Most of the 12,000 files seized by police were obtained in a search of Bullock’s San Francisco home, with some confidential files recovered from Anti-Defamation League offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco and the home of then-San Francisco Police Officer Tom Gerard.

For years, Bullock worked closely with Gerard, who was once assigned to police intelligence and also spent three years in the early 1980s as an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency in Latin America.

At one point, when the San Francisco Police Department moved to restrict its intelligence-gathering functions, Gerard helped arrange for Bullock to work as an informant for the FBI.

The FBI, however, stumbled onto the fact that Bullock also was an agent of the South African government and began what has become a two-year investigation into the case. Among other things, the FBI tapped Bullock’s telephone and recorded conversations with Gerard in which they discussed intelligence matters.

Authorities allege that Gerard gave confidential Police Department files to Bullock and sold files directly to another agent of the South African government for as much as $20,000. Though Bullock may have acted as an agent for South Africa and the ADL, there is no indication of collaboration between other representatives of the two parties.

Gerard, who also worked part time providing security for Philippine Airlines, left abruptly for the Philippines, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. He later resigned in a letter to the Police Department.

“The activities of Tom Gerard stepped over the line,” San Francisco Police Capt. Willett said. “They were illegal. He should not have been doing what he was doing for a private party.”

Gerard, contacted in the Philippines by the San Francisco Examiner, said he is the target of “the biggest witch hunt and wild goose chase I’ve ever seen.”

Times staff writer Richard A. Serrano contributed to this story.