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Police Spied on Maryland Activists

by Jordan Yerman | July 18, 2008 at 07:07 am

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This is yet more ammo for the anti-Patriot Act crowd: newly-unearthed records show nearly 300 hours of surveillance was carried out between 2005 and 2006 on anti-war and anti-death penalty activists in Maryland, USA. The records themselves assert that those under surveillance were doing nothing illegal, nor were they suspected of planning anything illegal, yet the surveillance continued.

Of course, there are those who will parrot, "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear", but if it were me, having federal agents breathing down my neck for exercising my rights as a US citizen would definitely have me thinking twice about what, exactly, my country has become since September 11, and who is actually winning the so-called "war on terror".

Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006.

Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests.

The police superintendent at the time, Tim Hutchins, fell back on that old standby: "national security".

He said Ehrlich (R) was not aware of it. "You do what you think is best to protect the general populace of the state," said Hutchins, now a federal defense contractor.

The article quoted does not elaborate on how spying on innocent civilians keeps the nation safe.

"To invest this many hours investigating the most all-American of activities without any scintilla of evidence there is anything criminal going on is shocking," ACLU lawyer David Rocah said at a news conference in Baltimore yesterday. "It's Kafkaesque."

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politisite

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:31 on July 18th, 2008

jordan, I like this story. It's good stuff. Here is a GS for the story. While I do support wiretapping on incoming internaternational calls from pssible terrorist activity. I am against the inter american listening or following sunverse groups.

Why could we not prosecute the Weather underground? Illegal activity by the FBI. Why was MLK followed, MalcohmX etc. Even infultrating and causing uproar withim thse communities. If you are a nation of laws and the leaders violate thos laws in a country where power moves from the people to govenrment, we have a serious problem. I love America. But these pwere hungry types in DC need to get it Right. I am the power that propells them.. not the other way around. do you think these guys where rubber gloves when they handle the constititution? I could go on, but coffee needs to flow or I will say how I really feel.

Karen Hatter

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:53 on July 18th, 2008

Jordan, I'm being nudged toward doing a piece on all of this called the new or neo COINTELPRO. The difference? Under Patriot Acts I and II, along with the other surveillance laws that have been passed, all of the previously labeled illegal activity during COINTELPRO, that was alleged to be in existence from 1956 to 1972, has now been legalized.