Prism Reports47%
Detective involved in 2009 alleged Army spying scandal in Washington state attended Israeli police training 22%
By Glen Stellmacher62%
8/4/2026, 12:41:46 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 7 faulty reasoning types, including Unattributed Quote, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Framing Effect, with Confirmation Bias as the most egregious example at 24.3% saturation with 756 hits. Analysis detected 1,972 faulty-reasoning hits from 3,108 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 30% and a BS Rank of 22% (21,160 of 26,881 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 78.70% of the article peer group.
During the summer of 2009, anti-war activists in Olympia, Washington, exposed that a Fort Lewis U.S.
Army intelligence specialist had “infiltrated” their grassroots movement as an undercover operative.
This is Part 1 in Prism’s series “ The ASTI Files .”
The operation began in 2007 when Pierce County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) Detective Chris Adamson approached Fort Lewis Criminal Intelligence Specialist John Towery and “asked him to do undercover work for the Sheriff’s Office,” according to federal court filings .
Towery later agreed to embed himself undercover within anti-war activist groups, including by attending meetings and a birthday party , according to a deposition of Adamson.
The revelations sparked widespread media coverage , condemnation, and eventually litigation .
The activists’ lawyer, Lawrence Hildes, argued that the Army employee “ acted intentionally ” to violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the military from performing the duties of civilian law enforcement.
The activists’ complaint in federal court was eventually dismissed , and volumes of court filings remain sealed.
More than 15 years later, Prism has uncovered new details to the alleged spying scandal, found in a trove of law enforcement training documents obtained through public records requests.
Prior to handling Towery as an undercover operative, Adamson attended a 2005 workshop taught by Israelis in Washington state, as well as a 2005 training program in Israel hosted by the Israeli deputy minister of internal security.
The training in Israel focused on human source intelligence (HUMINT) collection and military-police coordination, according to documents.
One of the training instructors listed for the 2005 workshop was Israeli American dual national Yisroel Stefansky, who went on to help organize multiple conferences and train American police and other emergency personnel under a for-profit company named Proactive Global Security and later, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit named Advanced Security Training Institute (ASTI).
While it is unknown how the Israeli trainings affected the Army and PCSO’s infiltration of American anti-war activists, former Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor—who also attended the 2005 training in Israel—later wrote in a letter to one of the program leaders that his time in Israel “was very useful in many ways and has informed how my Department and our entire County has planned, organized and exercised counter-terror information and practice.”
Over two years of investigation, Prism submitted dozens of public records requests to agencies across the U.S. and received thousands of pages of documents, including from the Seattle Police Department, the Austin Police Department, and the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., among others.
Prism traced law enforcement training programs as far back as 2005 from Washington state to Colorado, Texas, and D.C.
The documents map out how a series of little-known police training entities founded by Stefansky crossed paths with law enforcement throughout the country.
This is the first report of Prism’s series “The ASTI Files.”
This investigation, based primarily on public records, outlines the earliest instance Prism could find of Stefansky’s involvement in Israeli training programs within the U.S.
A “multi-disciplinary” effort
Following the revelations about Towery, the Army conducted an initial internal investigation, as well as two supplemental investigations that have since been made public.
A 2009 Army Public Communications Plan referenced in federal court filings states that the initial investigation found “no violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,” and that because the Army employee “did this in his off-duty capacity as a private citizen, this is not a violation of law.”
Towery’s former lawyer Tom Brennan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Prism received no response to calls and voicemails to a phone number for Towery.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) Garrison Public Affairs Officer Scot Keith told Prism, “JBLM has nothing to add to information released at the time.”
Adamson’s former lawyer Joan Mell declined to connect Prism with Adamson.
When Prism called a publicly listed number for him, a man offered to relay a message to Adamson, but said that he would probably not want to talk.
Prism received no further response.
Pastor did not respond to multiple emails, a call, and a text message requesting comment.
“I unfortunately know nothing about Sheriff Paul Pastor’s trip to Israel,” PCSO Public Information Officer Carly Cappetto told Prism in an email.
“Detective Chris Adamson retired years ago and we do not have a way of communicating with him.”
Public records shine light on the type of training Adamson received prior to the scandal’s eruption.
An itinerary of the 2005 training Adamson attended in Israel, obtained from the Washington State Patrol (WSP), shows that attendees would “learn about infiltrated society issues and the balance of security with civil liberties … Task Force Operations, Military Police Integration, Terrorist Profiling/Organizational Profiling HUMINT: Integration of intelligence/collection,” and further “Civilian/Military integration.”
To Stuart Schrader, an associate history professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of “Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing,” the idea of an “infiltrated society” raises serious questions.
“It’s about saying that society is contaminated by terrorist factions and operatives,” Schrader told Prism.
“What the hell is going on in Tacoma that would necessitate this?”
None of these details about this Israeli training have been previously reported.
Prism also uncovered overlap between law enforcement officials who attended a police training trip to Israel and then were involved in investigating anti-war activists.
Following a “ request ” from Israeli officials in March 2005, a “ multi-disciplinary ” cohort, including the FBI, the National Guard, local and state police, sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, and emergency managers from the Olympia and Tacoma regions of Washington state, traveled to Israel in November 2005 to receive training, according to the documents obtained through a public records request.
Our team goals are to glean as much terrorism detection and response information; past, present and future from the ‘experts’, bringing that information back to our region for implementation into our protocols through conceptual planning, communication and teamwork.
An outline of the trip to Israel obtained from the Washington State Archives states, “Our team goals are to glean as much terrorism detection and response information; past, present and future from the ‘experts’, bringing that information back to our region for implementation into our protocols through conceptual planning, training, communication and teamwork.”
Pierce County personnel explicitly aimed to keep the Israeli training out of the media, according to one 2005 email obtained through a public records request.
“While certainly not a secret, we do not want any pre-trip press coverage due to the sensitive issues being addressed,” a Pierce County Department of Emergency Management employee wrote.
Prism reached out to the organizations that, according to the documents, sent personnel to the training in Israel.
WSP Chief John Batiste told Prism in an email that the invitation for his department came through Pierce County’s emergency management director at the time.
“He said that it would be good for us to join them, as it would provide us advanced skills and knowledge about collaborating pre and post incidents involving homeland security matters and that we’d be learning from a country’s experts who were believed to be the world’s foremost experts on homeland security matters based on their lived experiences,” Batiste said.
Pierce County’s Department of Emergency Management did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
The Washington State Military Department Communications Director Karina Shagren told Prism that she was “not sure we’ll still have records of this training.”
The FBI Seattle Division declined to comment.
A “method parallel to Israeli methods”
Before the Army and PCSO began embedding into activist groups in Washington state, 32 PCSO deputies attended an “ Israeli Response to Terrorism Workshop ” at the Sheraton Hotel in Tacoma in 2005, according to an attendance list obtained through a public records request.
Twelve of Towery’s Army I Corps colleagues also attended the workshop, along with over 150 other military, federal, state, county, municipal, and private entities.
Prior to the 2005 workshop, an Army I Corps presentation obtained through a public records request shows that the I Corps was already circulating examples of Israeli counterterrorism strategies in March 2004.
The workshop agenda for March 30, 2005, shows a session titled “Military / Civilian Integration / Structural Collapse,” to be taught by the Israeli military’s home front command colonel and Yisroel Stefansky, ASTI’s founder who was identified in the document as the founder of the Israel Support Fund and a former member of ZAKA .
Batiste remembered Stefansky “as being part of the hosting group” for the 2005 trip to Israel, according to WSP Director of Public Affairs Chris Loftis.
Stefansky did not respond to multiple interview requests sent via text message, email, and through the contact form on ASTI’s website.
The Army Communications and Outreach Office told Prism in an email that it could not locate any contracts between the Army I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and any other business or 501(c)(3) entities founded by Stefansky.
“We’re also unable to locate meeting records from 2005,” the Army said.
One breakout session at the 2005 workshop also covered “Intelligence: HUMINT, gathering and disseminating Intel, coordination with other disciplines, preempting the attack, current trends, Undercover operations” according to an email obtained through a public records request.
The conference was organized by Pierce County’s Terrorism Early Warning group and its Department of Emergency Management, according to public records.
In January 2004, Washington State Homeland Security’s Region 5, which covers Pierce County, “began to cultivate a partnership between Israeli and American counterterrorism responders,” according to a training synopsis .
The department identified a relationship with the Israelis as an opportunity to “integrate any valuable response information that could be gained.”
The synopsis states that the training included several smaller sessions and ended with an Israeli keynote speaker.
The 2005 workshop in Tacoma was coordinated closely with the Israeli deputy minister of internal security, the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Israeli police, and Magen David Adom, an emergency medical organization in Israel, according to the synopsis .
“One of the major outcomes of the final discussion and the conference, as a whole, was an identified need to integrate response disciplines in a method parallel to Israeli methods,” the synopsis states.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. did not respond to requests for comment.
Joint Terrorism Task Force
The Israeli training in Washington state followed the Israeli killing of peace activist Rachel Corrie in March 2003.
Corrie attended Evergreen State College and was from Olympia, just outside of Pierce County.
She was killed in Gaza while traveling with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that The Intercept later reported was being investigated by the FBI.
Documents obtained by The Intercept revealed that the FBI Seattle Division’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) was investigating the ISM and monitoring people who had traveled to Israel “in order to serve as ‘human shields’ to protect the Palestinians from the Israeli military,” as early as 2002.
According to documents obtained by Prism from the Washington State Archives, after the Israeli training in 2005, Pastor and Batiste were invited to numerous classified JTTF briefings at the FBI Seattle Field Office in 2006 and 2007.
Tacoma police detective Jeffrey Shipp, who also traveled to Israel in 2005, was also identified as a JTTF officer on a roster for the 2005 training.
Prism received no response to multiple calls, voicemails, and text messages sent to a phone number found for Shipp.
Washington state’s terrorism interdiction practices eventually included compiling dossiers for a 2007 Domestic Terrorism Conference on the anti-Iraq War activists, according to an email obtained through a public records request.
Those dossiers were forwarded to FBI Agent Tarna Derby-McCurtain, who also attended the same 2005 training trip to Israel with Batiste, Pastor, Adamson, and Shipp under the umbrella of a “ Special Teams Group ,” according to a pre-trip planning document .
The FBI neither confirmed nor denied the existence of Derby-McCurtain’s Israeli travel records in response to Prism’s Freedom Of Information Act request.
When Prism appealed the FBI’s Glomar response, the Department of Justice told Prism that revealing the existence of the records could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
Prism received no response to calls, voicemails, and text messages to a phone number found for Derby-McCurtain.
Law enforcement officers from the WSP, PCSO, and Seattle and Tacoma police began planning a trip to Israel in November 2005 to “rapidly learn the effective methods and strategies Israel has developed through trial and error, and assimilate them into a comprehensive terrorism interdiction and response plan for our region and our State,” according to planning records and emails.
After the Tacoma workshop, the planning documents state that the Israeli government made a request to Pierce County coordinators “to bring a multi-disciplinary group to Israel to see beyond the theory.”
“In order to better deter and prevent attacks, one must be able to think like the attacker.
Through contact with Israel’s highly experienced police force and intelligence community, we will be better able to build realistic and teachable profiles of terrorists and their organizations.
This will also allow us to understand the terrorist infrastructure,” the document states.
Twenty Americans attended the 2005 training.
Instructors included “high ranking police, hospital, EMS, military, intelligence, legal and political officials.”
In total, 20 Americans attended the 2005 training, which was hosted by Israel’s deputy minister of internal security, also known as the deputy minister of public security , and whose instructors included “high ranking police, hospital, EMS, military, intelligence, legal and political officials,” according to the planning document .
Months earlier, in August 2005, the Israeli minister of public security met with a U.S. congressional delegation in Israel, where he urged U.S. officials to “gather intelligence by monitoring Muslim communities and try to recruit informants,” according to a classified diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
In Israel, the Americans attended an active Israeli military maneuver and witnessed the Israeli response to a suicide bombing site in Netanya.
The trip was also peppered with visits to numerous Christian sites of significance, such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs , Holy Archangels Armenian Convent , and the Holy Sepulcher , which were featured in a PCSO slideshow presentation.
Months after returning from Israel, in March 2006, Batiste, the WSP chief, and Stefansky met with then-Washington state Gov.
Christine Gregoire in her Olympia office, according to photographs obtained from the Washington State Archives.
Batiste told Prism, “This wasn’t a meeting, but merely a simple meet and greet with Governor Gregoire.”
A spokesperson for Challenge Seattle , where Gregoire serves as CEO, told Prism that she “has no recollection of this meeting.”
Six months later, Gregoire met privately with Israel’s consul general.
Later in 2013, Stefansky asked then-Gov.
Jay Inslee in an email, obtained by Prism through a request to the Washington State Archives, to attend a trip to Israel.
Inslee did not go.
Inslee did not respond to a request for comment.
After returning from Israel, Pastor, the Pierce County sheriff, put together a slideshow including photographs from the trip.
“We are not fighting ‘the war on terror,’ We are fighting WW IV.
… Whether you approve or do not approve of the manner in which the war is conducted … We are at war,” the slideshow states .
“Whether you approve or disapprove of their attitudes and tactics, the Israelis are allies in that war.”
Schrader, of Johns Hopkins, described Pastor’s slideshow as “framed as a clash of civilizations idiom, which was very popular at that time.
It’s intense how much it’s framed as a kind of cultural battle, a religious battle.”
In December 2005, Pastor put together a list of recommendations based on his visit to Israel.
These included increasing the use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) in law enforcement and security in Pierce County and communications and dispatch centers for digital and “telephonic reporting/monitoring activities.”
“Concerns about privacy and intrusiveness must be addressed but have been reduced by the number of private sector CCTV applications,” Pastor wrote .
“The time has come to incrementally adopt this technology in Pierce County.”
PCSO later installed a CCTV camera (obtained from the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Agency) outside an anti-war activist’s home, according to Adamson, the PCSO detective, during his federal deposition.
Documents obtained by Prism from the Washington State Archives show a handwritten note on the Israeli trip agenda next to an item titled “Meetings, discussions and briefings will be focused on the strong use of technology and surveillance camera.”
The note says, “ WAJAC ,” the acronym for the Washington State Joint Analytical Center, the state’s nascent fusion center intelligence network.
The WSP told Prism that Batiste did not write the note, but that it could have been written by another WSP chief who was scheduled to attend the Israeli training.
“The WAJAC wasn’t a focus of mine nor to my knowledge a consideration of others for this trip,” Batiste wrote in a statement provided to Prism by the WSP.
By 2010, PCSO was citing Stefansky in its regional intelligence bulletins.
The 2005 training with Israeli personnel appears to have made a significant impression on the Washington state law enforcement officials who attended.
After returning from Israel, PCSO’s SWAT team commander wrote , “Around the world, warriors in blue (police) and warriors in green (soldiers and peacekeepers) find themselves facing the same kind of missions.”
However, he wrote , “the tactical response levels used by Israeli Military and Police may never be approved by American Society in most cases.”
Pierce County’s then-director of emergency management added his concerns to a debrief of the training: “Due to the vast differences in the actual terrorist threat to our two nations, direct comparisons on the policy issues that currently impact the two countries are difficult.”
Pastor, however, made clear in his debrief presentation that the Israelis felt the trip served an additional purpose: actively sponsoring and encouraging visits by American officials and citizens “as a means of bridging what they view as an information / empathy gap.”
In an undated letter used in ASTI promotional materials , Pastor wrote, “I have attended four of their training offerings and traveled to Israel for training ‘in country.’
The training content we received was timely, useful and well-presented.
It has had a strong, positive impact on our policies and practices.”
The goal after the trip, as stated in the planning document , was to expand Washington state law enforcement participation in future Israeli training programs.
Public records obtained by Prism show that law enforcement from Washington state, Colorado, Texas, and Washington, D.C., later participated in further training in Israel led by Stefansky’s company Proactive Global Security and later, ASTI.
Speakers
6speakers10%attributed speech2,796writer words
Selected voice
46%flagged-word coverageJohn Batiste
131 attributed words42% of attributed speech64% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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