Court to hear challenge to biased policing of water protectors during Line 3 construction

Corrections: An earlier version of this post misidentified Winona LaDuke’s attorney. She is being represented by Frank Bibeau and Claire Glenn. It also failed to list all of the open cases against LaDuke, which have been added.

One of the hallmarks of this country’s democratic experiment is our aspiration for an impartial justice system, so it’s inexplicable how Minnesota leaders deployed law enforcement against water protectors who opposed the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in the manner that they did.

The problem started with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), but other leaders remained silent.

The PUC approved a scheme allowing Enbridge — a multi-billion dollar, multi-national Canadian company — to fund state and local law enforcement agencies to monitor and police water protectors who opposed the pipeline.

The PUC created a Public Safety Escrow Account. Enbridge funded it. Law enforcement agencies submitted bills for their Line 3-related expenses.

It created bias in the justice system, giving law enforcement financial incentives to focus on, and go after, water protectors.

The scheme finally is getting challenged in court.

When it comes to Enbridge Line 3, the scales of justice are badly out of balance

Scrappy environmental and racial justice advocates rely on social media to get the word out about their work. Such was the case with water protectors organizing against the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

At the same time, law enforcement increasingly tracks the social media accounts of indi­vidu­als and organ­iz­a­tions doing advocacy work. “This poses risks to privacy and free expres­sion, increases disproportionate surveil­lance of communit­ies of color, and can lead to arrests of people on the basis of misin­ter­preted posts and asso­ci­ations,” the Brennan Center for Justice said.

The Rally for the Rivers event held in the winter of 2021 is a Minnesota case study in law enforcement’s social media tracking. It’s also a jumping off point to look at the disparate treatment of water protectors opposed to Line 3 now facing criminal charges compared to the state’s weak response to Enbridge’s environmental damage.

Disparities in information access around Line 3 helps Enbridge, harms the public

Partnership for Civil Justice Fund seeks information on the ties between Enbridge, sheriff’s offices

Government transparency is critical to make the engine of democracy work. If we don’t know how and why the government makes decisions, we can’t make informed choices.

In the case of the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, a greedy corporation and weak state regulators have scapegoated Native American water protectors and their allies as lawbreakers. Enbridge’s Line 3 construction has done more harm than the front-line activists, yet the company doesn’t face nearly the public scrutiny or penalties.

Information is power. What information is publicly available — or not available — shapes public opinion.

Law enforcement agencies put water protectors under the microscope and closely monitored their activities while state regulators allowed Enbridge to operate in the dark.

This imbalance in scrutiny is built into our public institutions’ structures.

Aitkin County Sheriff to bill Enbridge 4,800 staff hours for Line 3 training and responses

And pushing back on Sheriff Guida’s claims his office didn’t take sides in the controversy

[The correct date for this blog is Nov. 11, 2021]

Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office will submit bills to the Enbridge Line 3 Public Safety Escrow Account for reimbursements for 4,800 hours of staff time dedicated to Line 3 work, Sheriff Dan Guida said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Specifically, the county will bill 4,373 hours for public safety responses and 450 hours for staff training on pipeline construction. Guida didn’t include a dollar figure for those costs. A back-of-the-envelop calculation estimates salary costs around $140,000. The final bill could go higher if it includes benefits, travel, equipment and other costs beyond salaries.

In his statement, Guida said his office stayed neutral on the conflict. That claim needs to be challenged.

From the Line 3 front lines: Arrests at multiple sites, police dogs, an eviction order and its repeal, police harassment, and cultural renewal as pipeline construction escalates

Photo: Indigenous Environmental Network

Indigenous nations and people are flexing their treaty muscles to Stop Line 3.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety and the Minnesota Department of Transportation threatened arrests and evictions earlier today at the Red Lake Treaty Camp in Pennington County. The camp is adjacent to lands where Enbridge plans to tunnel Line 3 under the Red Lake River.

The agencies later rescinded their trespass order, indicating that Water Protectors in the area are not required to leave.

That said, law enforcement arrested one person at the Treaty Camp Tuesday. They also brought attack dogs, according to a media release, reminiscent of Standing Rock.

Unlike Standing Rock, however, which focused on the Dakota Access Pipeline’s Missouri River crossing, Line 3 runs 337 miles border-to-border through northern Minnesota, crossing more than 200 bodies. Resistance is spread out. Water Protectors use a variety of tactics. Some resist with peaceful presence, exercising their treaty-protected rights to hold ceremony on Line 3 easements. Others lock down to equipment.

In other news today, Water Protectors locked down to Enbridge’s Horizontal Directional Drill (HDD) equipment being used to bore a Line 3 tunnel under the Straight River in Hubbard County, according to the Giniw Collective.

On Monday, three Water Protectors connected to a ceremony were arrested in Aitkin County on an Enbridge easement for its second Mississippi River crossing.

Details below.