The U.S. District court in Tacoma awarded $248,817 in attorney’s fees today to attorneys of an Olympia activist in a case involving secret surveillance by government agencies, says the ACLU of Washington, which was working on the case. The award is in addition to a $169,000 settlement in May from the Washington State Patrol, the City of Aberdeen, and Grays Harbor County to Phil Chinn for violating his rights to lawfully protest.

The case arose in 2007, when an officer stopped Chinn on his way to an anti-war demonstration in Grays Harbor. The officer had no reason to believe Chinn was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or driving above the speed limit.

But Chinn was charged with driving under the influence of marijuana, even though a blood test would later come up negative. Chinn was held in custody until the protest was over.

The ACLU of Washington, and attorney Larry Hildes, a member of the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee, intervened. As part of the lawsuit filed last year, the groups requested records that revealed city, county, and state officials had developed an action plan designed to prevent those who they considered to be anarchists or associated with anarchists from going to protest the use of the Port of Grays Harbor for military shipments. Various state and local law enforcement agencies, military entities, and others had developed the “Grays Harbor Military Movement Incident Action Plan,” prior to scheduled shipments of military equipment at the harbor. The suit alleged that, as part of the plan, state troopers stopped and wrongfully arrested Chinn after receiving word that he was driving a car with “three identified anarchists." The information was derived through covert surveillance by law enforcement agencies, who observed the three men meet Chinn in Olympia to carpool to the demonstration.

“In America, people have the right to engage in lawful protest without being targeted by law enforcement because of their political beliefs,” says ACLU of Washington’s executive director Kathleen Taylor.