The ADL Domestic Surveillance Scandal

Summary

In 1993, the San Francisco Police Department and the FBI uncovered a long-running private intelligence operation run by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith. A longtime ADL operative, Roy Bullock, had spent decades compiling secret files on political activists and organizations — a database that according to a police inspector’s affidavit covered roughly 9,876 to 12,000 individuals and some 950 organizations. Much of the confidential law-enforcement information in those files had been illegally supplied by Thomas Gerard, an inspector in the SFPD intelligence unit. Police raided the ADL’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices in April 1993 and removed about ten boxes of files, three-quarters of which investigators said consisted of illegally obtained confidential material. The targets of the surveillance included Arab-American organizations, civil-rights groups, anti-apartheid activists, and critics of Israel. The ADL ultimately settled a class-action lawsuit while maintaining it had done nothing improper. This article documents the scandal from the police, court, and contemporaneous press record.

Background

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is one of the most prominent Jewish civil-rights organizations in the United States, with a stated mission of combating antisemitism and bigotry. Alongside that public mission, the organization maintained a long-running “fact-finding” operation that monitored groups it considered extremist or hostile — a practice that, in this instance, extended well beyond hate groups into surveillance of mainstream political activists and organizations critical of Israel.

The operation’s central figure was Roy Bullock, a San Francisco art dealer who, according to investigators, had worked as a paid ADL informant for nearly four decades. Bullock had also been employed by the CIA in El Salvador in the 1980s and had served as an FBI informant — a man embedded in the world of political intelligence-gathering. An internal 1992 ADL memo by the organization’s fact-finding director, Irwin Suall, described Bullock as the League’s “number one investigator.”

What Happened

The scandal surfaced through the investigation of a corrupt police officer. Thomas Gerard, an inspector in the San Francisco Police Department’s intelligence unit, had access to confidential law-enforcement databases. According to the San Francisco District Attorney, Gerard fed a steady stream of confidential information — including driver’s-license data, physical descriptions, and criminal records — to Roy Bullock, who incorporated it into the ADL’s files.

When the FBI compiled evidence that Gerard had leaked confidential police information to Bullock, San Francisco authorities acted. In April 1993, police raided the ADL’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices. According to the affidavit of SFPD Inspector Roth, the investigation found that Bullock and Gerard had collaborated to develop a vast computer database containing files on 9,876 politically active people, including their driver’s-license numbers, physical descriptions, and criminal records. Other accounts, including MERIP’s contemporaneous reporting, put the total at roughly 12,000 individuals and 950 organizations.

The scope of who was surveilled is the heart of the scandal. The targets were not limited to extremist groups. They included Arab-American organizations and activists, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, anti-apartheid activists working against the South African government, the ACLU, Representative Ron Dellums, Palestinian-solidarity groups, the New Jewish Agenda (a left-wing Jewish group), and the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP). In other words, the ADL had compiled secret intelligence files on a broad range of lawful American political actors, many of whose offense was advocacy critical of Israel or of apartheid South Africa.

Investigators removed approximately ten boxes of files from ADL offices; per the Pacific Standard account of the investigation, three-quarters of that material consisted of confidential information that had been illegally obtained.

A darker thread ran alongside the surveillance scandal. Tom Gerard had a background in CIA-linked activity, and the Arab-American community raised pointed questions — never resolved — about whether information gathered through the operation could have been connected to the 1985 assassination of Alex Odeh, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee regional director killed by a bomb in Santa Ana, California. These questions were raised publicly with the FBI at the time; no charges ever connected the surveillance operation to the Odeh murder, and that link remains an unproven concern rather than an established fact.

Key Figures

Roy Bullock — San Francisco art dealer; paid ADL operative for roughly four decades; former CIA and FBI informant; built the surveillance database described by the ADL’s own memo as the work of its “number one investigator.”
Thomas (Tom) Gerard — SFPD intelligence-unit inspector; supplied confidential law-enforcement data to Bullock; fled to the Philippines as the investigation closed in.
Irwin Suall — ADL fact-finding director; authored the 1992 memo praising Bullock.
San Francisco District Attorney’s Office / Inspector Roth — Conducted the investigation and raids; Roth’s affidavit documented the database.
Targets — Arab-American groups, the ADC, the ACLU, Rep. Ron Dellums, anti-apartheid and Palestinian-solidarity activists, New Jewish Agenda, MERIP, and others.

Official Response

The criminal exposure was significant. The San Francisco District Attorney’s office initially discussed fines that could run into the millions and felony charges that could have sent ADL operatives to prison. Inspector Roth stated that “ADL employees were less than truthful with regards to the employment of Roy Bullock and other matters.”

The criminal case against the ADL did not, however, result in the severe outcome initially contemplated. As one account put it, the political establishment proved unwilling to fully prosecute the organization. Tom Gerard fled to the Philippines. The criminal matter was ultimately resolved without the felony convictions or multimillion-dollar fines that had been discussed; the ADL reached an arrangement with the San Francisco DA that avoided prosecution.

The civil litigation produced a clearer accountability. A class-action lawsuit filed in 1993 alleged that the ADL had hired intelligence agents with police and government ties to compile confidential information on Arab-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans, and left-wing groups. The ADL agreed to settle. As the plaintiffs’ attorney Van Der Hout summarized: “The important thing is that there was a gathering of information that shouldn’t have been going on. Whether it’s the police department or the ADL, there shouldn’t be spying on individuals who have done nothing wrong.” The ADL settled while maintaining its position that it had done nothing improper or illegal.

Consequences

The ADL paid a civil settlement and agreed to constraints on its information-gathering, while admitting no wrongdoing. No ADL official served prison time. Tom Gerard, the police inspector at the center of the illegal data flow, evaded the most serious consequences by fleeing the country.

Significance

The ADL surveillance scandal belongs in this category because it is the documented instance in which an organization dedicated to defending Israel’s image and confronting its critics was caught operating a private domestic spying network against lawful American political activists — and caught not through allegation but through police raids and a sworn affidavit. The database of roughly 12,000 people was not a list of violent extremists; it included members of Congress, the ACLU, anti-apartheid campaigners, a left-wing Jewish group, and a broad swath of Arab-American and Palestinian-solidarity organizations whose activity was constitutionally protected political speech. The confidential law-enforcement data that powered it was obtained illegally, through a corrupt police inspector. That the criminal case was ultimately resolved without prosecution — while comparable conduct by ordinary citizens would carry serious penalties — fits the broader pattern this archive documents, and the civil settlement, reached while admitting nothing, closed the matter without full public accountability. What the case establishes on the record is that the suppression of Israel’s critics in the United States has at times taken the most literal form available: secret surveillance files, compiled over decades, on Americans who had done nothing but disagree.

Sources

Baltimore Sun, “Anti-Defamation League Offices Raided by Police; Spy Data Sought in San Francisco,” April 9, 1993 — quotes Inspector Roth’s affidavit and the 9,876-file figure
J. (The Jewish News of Northern California), “ADL Ready to Settle 1993 Class-Action Suit on Spying,” May 14, 1999 — documents the settlement and attorney statements
MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project), “ADL’s Spy Ring,” July 1993 — documents the targets and the ~12,000-individual/950-organization database
Pacific Standard, “The Kings of Garbage, or, The ADL Spied on Me and All I Got Was This Lousy Index Card,” 2014 — detailed investigative account of the raids and the Bullock/Gerard operation
Detroit Jewish News archive, April 16, 1993 (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan) — contemporaneous reporting including reactions from Jewish community figures
University of Kansas Wilcox Collection (RH WL MS 49) — archival holdings of FBI files on Roy Bullock and the San Francisco spy case
SFPD Inspector’s affidavit, San Francisco District Attorney’s investigation, 1993