Newspaper Owned By Fracking Billionaire Leaks Memo Calling Pipeline Opponents Potential "Terrorists"

DESMOG

By Steve Horn

April 23, 2017

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has published a report titled, “Potential Domestic Terrorist Threats to Multi-State Diamond Pipeline Construction Project,” dated April 7 and first published by The Washington Examiner.

The DHS field analysis report points to lessons from policing the Dakota Access pipeline, saying they can be applied to the ongoing controversy over the Diamond pipeline, which, when complete, will stretch from Cushing, Oklahoma to Memphis, Tennessee. While lacking “credible information” of such a potential threat, DHS concluded that “the most likely potential domestic terrorist threat to the Diamond Pipeline … is from environmental rights extremists motivated by resentment over perceived environmental destruction.”

The Washington Examiner is owned by conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz, a former American Petroleum Institute board member. His company, Anschutz Exploration Corporation, is a major oil and gas driller involved in the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in states such as Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Paul Bedard, the Examiner columnist who published the document and an article about it, did not respond to repeated requests for comment from DeSmog about how he obtained it or who leaked it to him.

In his story, Bedard did not explain how he obtained the document marked “Unclassified / For Official Use Only,” and the memo is not up on the DHS website. The DHS also did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did Fox News 13 in Memphis, which also ran a story on the memo.

“While one can only guess as to motivations in particular cases, one thing that is certain is that the government deliberately leaks information with great frequency,” Margaret Kwoka, Professor at The University of Denver Sturm College of Law who researches government leaks, told DeSmog. “These sorts of authorized leaks, also known as plants, are often for political reasons, typically done in an effort to influence a particular policy or proposal. When information is leaked it allows the government to maintain some distance and deniability and keeps government officials from having to comment directly on the matter.”

Anschutz, a major Republican Party donor, formerly owned the company Pacific Energy Partners, which was sold to Lehman Brothers and then immediately to Plains All American for $2.4 billion in 2006. The Diamond pipeline is co-owned by Valero Energy and Plains All American, which also co-owns two other pipelines, the Saddlehorn Pipeline and the Grand Mesa Pipeline, which carry the same type of oil Anschutz drills in the DJ Basin from Colorado to Cushing, Oklahoma.

DHS Report's Sources

In the report's preamble, it states that “This product is intended to assist government, law enforcement, emergency managers, and private sector security partners in preventing and responding to potential threats during construction of the pipeline.” DHS also admits in the report that its analysis is in large part based upon “open source” materials, or those collected mostly by doing online research.

“The information used in this [Field Activity Report] is drawn from open source reporting, DHS reporting, and other law enforcement intelligence reports,” wrote DHS…..

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