A federal court has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit filed by peace activists in Olympia, Washington, over spying by a U.S. military informant who infiltrated their group. Democracy Now! first broke this story in 2009 when it was revealed an active member of Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance was actually an informant for the U.S. military. The man everyone knew as “John Jacob” was in fact John Towery, a member of the Force Protection Service at Fort Lewis. He also spied on the Industrial Workers of the World and Iraq Veterans Against the War.The exposure of the spying also led to disclosures of intelligence gathering and sharing about the activists by the Air Force, the federal Capitol Police, the Coast Guard and local and state police. But this week, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton ruled Towery did not violate the activists’ civil rights because he was acting out of legitimate safety concerns for the Fort Lewis base, not seeking to stifle political speech. The activists say they plan to appeal the ruling, saying it “fundamentally compromises the Constitution.”