Widespread Spying Preceded '04 GOP Convention

Frosty Piss alerts us to a story in the New York Times reporting on details that are emerging of a far-flung spying operation lasting up to a year leading up to the 2004 Republican National Convention. The New York Police Department mounted a spy campaign reaching well beyond the state of New York. For at least a year before the convention, teams of undercover New York police officers traveled to cities across the US, Canada, and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention. Across the country undercover officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists. In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with other police departments. Outlines of the pre-convention operations are emerging from records in federal lawsuits brought over mass arrests during the convention.

Comments

This is the police.

[Pig Hogger]

This is the police.

Police has no morality whatsoever; they are not sworn-in to the Constitution like the armed forces are, and so are open to perform all abuses for the rich and powerful.

Re:This is the police.

[chris_eineke]

the rich and powerful

Follow the money. Don't stop at Parties. Don't stop at banks. Stop at the Federal Reserve.

Re:This is the police.

[Seumas]

Of course, the typical American response is going to be this:

For a couple days, half of people will get upset over the abuse of power and invasion of privacy and misuse of government while the other half excuse and justify it with comments like "if ya don't have nuthin' tuh hide" and "we're at war - you have to give up some freedoms to be safe during war!".

Some minor news organizations will make a huge deal out of it.

Most will largely ignore it and not make a story out of it.

Within 72 hours, Americans will have forgotten entirely about it and be back to fretting over the poor blond haired, blue-eyed, pretty, affluent girl that disappeared a couple years ago in Bermuda thanks to the non-stop cable news coverage (still, two years later - as of the broadcasts LASTNIGHT!).

Remember, this is America. We don't start revolutions. We don't fight for anything unless it's the last Tickle Me Elmo on store shelves at Christmas. The most effort we're willing to put into our civics and society and the most we're willing to risk of ourselves for them is a text vote or two on our cell phones.

Re:This is the police.

[El Torico]

Within 72 hours, Americans will have forgotten entirely about it
and we'll find something else to read and rant about on /.

Re:This is the police.

[Seumas]

I'm no history major, but I'm pretty sure those were not Americans at the time of the revolution. They were colonists. To my knowledge, the closest thing to a revolution that actual Americans have participated in was the civil war and I don't think that really counts. Again, I don't know shit about history, so someone feel free to correct me.

Regardless, they were a different breed of people. Those were people who would stand up for their ideals and freedoms. They didn't have to risk losing sit-coms on television, lattes at starbucks and their 9mpg sedans for standing up for themselves. Look at the liberties we've already lost. Do we even have half of our Bill of Rights left? I don't think so. And where is the outrage? There isn't any. As long as we can still buy Pepsi from vending machines, drive whatever car we choose and wave little american flags made in China and have our Superbowl, we believe we have freedom and are better than the rest of the planet.

Re:This is the police.

[Bassman59]

Of course, the typical American response is going to be this:

For a couple days, half of people will get upset over the abuse of power and invasion of privacy and misuse of government while the other half excuse and justify it with comments like "if ya don't have nuthin' tuh hide" and "we're at war - you have to give up some freedoms to be safe during war!".

Ah, so then by that logic, Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers and Karl Rove should be the first ones to volunteer to testify in front of the House and Senate committees investigating the federal attorney firings. After all, if they had nothing to hide, then they should have no objections to testifying under oath, in public, with published transcripts made available immediately.

Re:This is the police.

[Anonymous Coward]

So lobbying for laws benefiting their constituency isn't trying to improve their lives?

Re:This is the police.

[sumdumass]

Breaking laws and property damage is in no way free speech. I don't see how you can think it is. Should someone who doesn't like what your saying be able to deface your car in the name of free speech?

Do what you want. But tell it like it is, Those that oppose criminal and illegal activity are not opposing free speech.

Re:This is the police.

[Darby]

And truthfully, This is the exact reason Bush needs the patriot act and the secrecy surrounding holding enemy combatants. This is exactly why he needs the suspension of Habeas Corpus for some non citizens. And this is exactly why he need the process to be conducted in a secure manor.

But those of us who are not cowards would prefer to have some risk (even though even what there is is largely overblown) than to have a totalitarian society.
In fact, that's how this country came to be.
So your cowardice (don't whine ad hominem, a coward is exactly what *you* just declared yourself to be) and that of those like you is the gravest threat our nation faces or has ever faced.
Since you're too weak and cowardly to live in a free society, why don't you move to Saudi Arabia or some other country where they already live under your favored system rather than working to fuck this place as well?

Oh yeah, that would take the courage of your convictions and you've already admitted to being a coward.

Re:This is the police.

[asninn]

The issue is that the police should leave people who haven't committed any crime, who're not suspected of having committed any crime, and who are not suspected of planning to commit any crime in the future ALONE.

Suppose a police officer would get posted outside your house. He doesn't enter your private property or anything, but he stands there, and when you leave the house, he follows you; if you enter another piece of private property (one that he can't enter - your office, for example, or a friend's house, as opposed to a supermarket or a pub), he waits outside again until you come back out. He's always with you, listening to everything you say in public, compiling a file on you that gets shared with the FBI later on. Heck, for added fun, suppose he's also recording every public conversation of yours and videotaping your actions in public.

Are you OK with that?

Clearly, the same reasoning you use could be applied here: you're in public, so everything you do and say is - well - public. And if you ask the police officer why he's doing this, he will tell you that it's in the interest of "security", of course - national security, most likely. And he's sorry, but he cannot give any details, but since he's not intruding on your *private* life, there's no issue there, right?

Now suppose the same thing's happening, but he's not identifying as a police officer or letting you know he's recording your conversations etc. or compiling a file on you; in fact, you don't even notice that he's there. He's always following you, but you don't even know until you find out years later by pure coincidence. Are you still OK with that?

The problem here is that the police simply has no business interfering with the lives of people who aren't suspected of doing anything wrong. And that's DOUBLY TRUE when we're talking about protesting and political dissent, since that's arguably one of the fundamental pillars upon which democracy rests; harassing (and I intentionally say "harassing"!) innocent people simply because they intend to attend a political demonstration creates a chilling effect and is at completely odds with democracy.

THAT is what the issue is.

Re:This is the police.

[polar red]

Well, 200 years ago, religion was the method to pull a blanket over your eyes. Now, Nationalism is used in the same way.

NYPD once again violates Handschu Agreement..

[mikelieman]

The NYPD exhibiting "Bad Faith"?

Why am I not surprised?

The Best Intelligence Agency in the US!

[soren42]

So, what I took from this article is that the NYPD has domestic and international espionage capabilities comparable to (or, worse, better than) our nation's designed intelligence bodies. They also seem to do a better job of sharing information between agencies than the CIA, NSA, the various military intelligence organizations, and the FBI.

This is yet another illustration of my point... the people that need to be in Iraq and Afghanistan are the NYPD and the LAPD. Their SWAT, negotiations, and (apparently!) intelligence teams are what's needed - these efforts ceased being appropriate "military actions" some time ago. What's needed now is an effective police force - which not the U.S. Army or Marines.

And, by the way, yes, I do agree with what will no doubt the general sentiment on there - that is an outrageous, appalling, and despicable invasion of the personal privacy rights of ordinary citizens around the globe... but, aside from whining about how corrupt our elected officials and expressing my outrage, I figured there was some small glimmer of upside in this piece.

Re:The Best Intelligence Agency in the US!

[samkass]

The best-run countries don't have a humongous population.

I take it your assertion is that China and India have ineffective, inefficient, badly run governments? Because while I sure don't agree with the means to China's ends, they don't seem to be failing at their goals or wasting their GNP.

Previous operations of this sort

[Anonymous Coward]

So let's review what we know so far...

* FBI abusing its snooping authority under the patriot act
* Major telecommunications companies provide secret rooms to the government to pick through Internet communications
* Al Gonzalez authorizes (illegal) collection of phone call databases
* "Total Information Awareness" (TIA) program continues to create mass associative database of all american entities (people, businesses)
* Inkjet printers embed hidden serial numbers
* Newly issued American passports leak personal information including pictures
* Government has access to all Americans' financial transactions
* US government contracts w/private companies to harvest information (which it itself can't do)
* Law enforcement infiltrates peaceful organizations (occasionally incites and/or foments violence)
* Attorney General removes Federal Prosecutor for lack of loyalty to Administration... (raising questions about those who WEREN'T fired)
* ???
* Someone profits.

All that intelligence gathering for what?

[John3]

My brother was one of the 1,800 people held for one or two days at the old vehicle maintenance facility on the west side of Manhattan. Many of these people (including my brother) were rounded up like cattle just because they were walking down a block where a protest was taking place. People were out getting groceries and arrested, with no way to place phone calls, no place to sit, and unhealthy conditions (the police who worked in the facility during the same time period have filed numerous health claims).

So all this data was gathered and used for what...to cordon off a city block with snow fence and arrest EVERYONE in that block?

Ultimately the police likely had no real way to use any of the data, and to keep their Republican guests happy they resorted instead to just rounding up as many people as they could. By the time everyone was released the convention was over. The lawsuits will drag on for years (my brother is suing the city) and cost the city a ton of money.

The police like to boast that there were no disturbances or major incidents during the convention and they take the credit. More likely the reason is that the protestors and the citizens of New York were well behaved, protested peacefully, and even welcomed many of the convention attendees. My daughters (13 and 10 at the time) and I marched in the protest on Sunday during the convention and it was a wonderful day of peaceful expression of our political feelings.

Re:Knowing what to do?

[jeff4747]

There is an effective way to deal with these things. Vote. When elections are lost because of this kind of thing, this kind of thing will stop happening.

It doesn't matter if the other candidate is only slightly less repugnant. Eventually you'll run the crappy people out.

Apathy is the only reason politics is in it's current cesspool state.

This Defies Rightist "Conspiracy Theory" Arguments

[SRA8]

The argument I constantly hear from those on the far right -- if there actually was a conspiracy, someone would have spoken out. Well, if that is the case, how come such a national "conspiracy," if you would call it, took 3 years to come out?

not what you think

[mastershake_phd]

They must mean New York, USSR. Americans would never allow this type of stuff.

If by "best", you mean "overzealous"

[alienmole]

Thank you for your efforts at keeping folks in NYC safe from destrutive assholes.

Hopefully you don't mean to conflate "people who planned to protest at the convention" with "destructive assholes". And that's the problem here: the police are treating people with dissenting political views as potential criminals. That's an unfortunate situation in a supposedly free society: at the very least, it certainly has a chilling effect on free speech. I've lived in a country where you had to worry about whether your neighbor or some of your college buddies were reporting on what you said to the government. That's a very effective tool for keeping a populace in line and suppressing dissent, or at least driving it underground. Paradoxically, though, the more you do that kind of thing, the more likely you are to have a huge blowup (figuratively and literally) in future.

Have you ever sat around with a group of friends who you know share your opinions, and bullshitted about how you'd like to kill someone, or see them killed, or blow up something to make a point, etc.? People say that sort of stuff all the time, even quite respectable people, especially when they're young. Now imagine there's an undercover cop in the room, and what's going to go in his report. Watch the movie "A Scanner Darkly" (or read the book) to get a bit of a feel for this, it's quite accurate in that respect. Pretty soon you've got federal agents chasing shadows, and SWAT raids on innocent people's houses. That hasn't happened all that much in the U.S. recently, yet, but the way things are going, it seems like just a matter of time. Perhaps every few generations, it's necessary to rediscover firsthand why the iron fist approach to governance doesn't work.

That all said, cops still have a job to do. But when conducting operations like this one, they need to be held to a high standard. Did you RTFA? Here's a quote:

In hundreds of reports stamped "N.Y.P.D. Secret," the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with police departments in other cities. A police report on an organization of artists called Bands Against Bush noted that the group was planning concerts on Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets, the report said, there would be political speeches and videos.

The problem is that when you give people power over other people, abuse all too easily follows. We saw that in Abu Ghraib, and it's been demonstrated over and over in psychological experiments. When you turn someone into a spy, especially someone who isn't properly trained, it can be difficult for them to remember their real mission -- suddenly, finding anything out about anyone starts to seem important. (Some special prosecutors seem to have suffered from this effect, too.) So with operations like this, real care and oversight is needed.

The issue is?

[OakLEE]

Disclosure: I don't feel like registering, so I did not read the article. My comments are based completely on the summary. Feel free to correct me if the story indicates otherwise.

That said, what the NYPD did is (1) travel to cities around the world (2) to observe public meetings of groups of people (3) who were likely to be in NYC during the convention (4) and cause significant disruptions in business and city services (5) for an extended period of time.

This is not espionage, it is scouting. The NYPD did not obtain any secret information from these meetings. These were publicly open meetings intended to disseminate the information the NYPD was after to anyone in attendance. The NYPD took action that an average person could take if they were willing to spend a several thousand dollars.

This is no different than a basketball coach attending an opposing team's game or looking at their game film. This is no different, even, than a police man listening to two people talking in the middle of a busy street. It is settled law, in the US at least, that individuals or groups of individuals have no expectation of privacy in a public area.

The NYPD did not exercise any extra-jurisdictional control over these people or use any methods that would illegal under either US, New York, or Local Country law. All they did was attend public meetings without advertising their presence. There is no evidence here that NYPD was abusing its authority in observing these groups, that it infiltrated these groups to cause internal disruptions, or that its observation invaded the privacy of these groups. In short, the NYPD did nothing legally or morally wrong.

Re:The issue is?

[fermion]

The issue is that the New York police investigated, created records, and exchanged such records with other jurisdictions, without any evidence of wrong doing. Generally such investigations, done without probable cause, is called harassment, and is frowned upon.

What is missing in this hysterical world is good police work. Such work requires investigation, analysis, and conclusions free of political bias. Such work is difficult, not glamourous, but must be done. So, instead of working to reduce the 80,000+ violent crimes, the nearly 900 murders, that is one every 10 hours, 3000+ forcible rapes, they decided to attend meeting, file reports, and make accusations against individuals for which they had not evidence.

Is it clear the parent did not read the article because the parent missed the whole point. Let's put this in another perspective. What the NYPD did is in effect a very expensive fishing expedition. Such work is frowned upon. For instance, police cannot enter a premises without cause. Police cannot create reports and exchange reports for innocent person. For instance, a police officer does not have the right to claim that parent poster is a murderer if not such evidence exists. For those who have forgotten history, we do this because the country we were fighting in the American revolutionary war felt like it had the right to enter where it like, take what it wanted, and hold anyone indefinitely without cause. Many thousands good people lost their life fighting England for the freedoms we know enjoy. What is sad that we are so afraid of losing our lifestyle, not out life, just our lifestyle, that we are willing to throw it all away.

I often wonder if the people who support the policy of widespread detainment and widespread police power would actually be willing to allow their property or person to be searched without warrant, or would be willing to give up all possession for the benefit of the state.

Re:Knowing what to do?

[Red Flayer]

It doesn't matter if the other candidate is only slightly less repugnant. Eventually you'll run the crappy people out.

Are you implying that the number of crappy people in politics isn't infinite? :)

Apathy is the only reason politics is in it's current cesspool state.

I disagree. You'll never get good citizen oversight of elected officials and the election process (at the national level) when the average Senator represents 6 million people. Politicians are not responsible to the people, they are responsible to the media who inform the people. Even most self-described "informed" voters get the bulk of their information from television.

You're right, apathy is a problem. But ignorance and miseducation are just as big a problem, as is access to media.

Re:Looks like good policework

[Trailwalker]

Anarchy, terror and violence are a police prerogative.

I watched this convention on television and saw the mass arrests in D.C. during the Nixon years.

Police are always politically controlled and will commit any violence necessary to satisfy their masters.

When police leave criminal investigations to enforce political decisions, no one is safe.

Re:AGAIN again .....

[quanticle]

>>But no, you're probably right, that this admin is working hard to rise to Nixonian levels.<<

Huh? By many measures of governmental openness, this administration has surpassed Nixonian levels of secrecy. Don't forget that this administration had a long period where they controlled all three branches of government, enabling them to change policies and regulations so that secrecy became institutionalized. Nixon did not have an opportunity to do this.

Re:AGAIN again .....

[ArcherB]

Since when is the NYPD Republican?

Re:Looks like good policework

[John3]

Bottom line people, the right to protest DOES not include the right to anarchy, terror and violence

It does, however, include the right to speedy processing if you are arrested.

"senior police officials had said for months that they anticipated 1,000 arrests a day during the convention" (msnbc article).

So police intelligence indicated as many as 1000 arrests per day, the state and courts geared up for the onslaught, and yet the police department decided just to hold everyone in a converted maintenance garage and then release without charging them with anything? Sounds like a bit like a police state to me. Thankfully "State Supreme Court Judge John Cataldo held officials in contempt of court. "These people," Cataldo said of those arrested, "have already been victims of the process.""

So the police had a wealth of info about who they should watch and arrest and yet they went over the top and arrested entire blocks of people.

Re:Key Question: "What is the next step?"

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Spying, by itself, does not suppress democracy.

That is arguable. If people are even *aware* that spying is occurring, regardless of whether they themselves are being spied on (or if they know they're being spied on), it can have a chilling effect on the self-correcting behavior of democracies.

Re:AGAIN again .....

[mdfst13]

Since when is the NYPD Republican? Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani -- I'd have to guess since about January 1st of 1994. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg suggests that it still is. At least in terms of who has ultimate control over budgeting and selection of people for task forces.

Re:Clinton fired 92 US Attorneys

[koreth]

Don't feed the trolls. Don't feed the trolls. Don't feed the... ah, crap.

The current controversy is because firing US Attorneys en masse in the middle of a President's term is unprecedented. Lots of presidents appoint new attorneys when they take office. If you think Clinton is getting a free pass, here's a brain twister for you: Bush did the same thing when he took office, and nobody said a thing about it. If it's really "it's okay if Clinton does it, but not Bush!" then why didn't anyone complain then? Maybe because what's happening now isn't the same thing?