Last week we found out that the NYPD had conducted surveillance on prospective protesters of the 2004 GOP Convention in New York City, going to the trouble of travelling across the country and into Canada and Europe. This story is now gaining longer legs as the city is fighting to keep massive amounts of documents sealed from the public.
From the New York Times:
“The documents were not written for consumption by the general public,” wrote Peter Farrell, senior counsel in the city’s Law Department. “The documents contain information filtered and distilled for analysis by intelligence officers accustomed to reading intelligence information.”
Because the materials have not yet been used to decide or argue any issues in the civil lawsuits, Mr. Farrell said, “there is no right of public access.”
The documents show that the Police Department’s Intelligence Division sent undercover detectives around the city, the country and the world to collect information on political activists and others planning to demonstrate at the 2004 convention, according to a sampling of records reviewed by The New York Times that were the subject of an article yesterday. The records included intelligence digests and field reports from detectives, known as DD5s.
Well boo hoo! Despite city attorneys self-proclaimed ability to decide whether the public can consume their documents or not, they deserve to be heard. The city's ultimate authority rests with the people of the city and the courts that adjudicate the government. That information shall be dispersed because it is essential to hear what these "DD5's" were doing while being paid by the city. Conducting searches that show a 'police state' atmosphere is wholly unethical and not acceptable for any municipality to do within the borders of the United States of America.
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