MD ACLU seeks other targets of state police spying

The Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said it filed public information requests Tuesday to determine if state police spied on organizations beyond the activist groups it has already admitted to tracking.

ACLU attorney David Rocah said the requests cover 32 groups, including two which the ACLU said it determined were also under police surveillance. The others are groups that may have been tracked based on the reasons given by state police for the surveillance of the anti-war and death penalty opposition groups.

State police have said a pending execution prompted the surveillance, which occurred in 2005 and 2006 and ended once the execution was postponed. However, the ACLU has said that doesn’t explain why anti-war groups were targeted.

Rocah said the additional groups also fit the state police’s “baseless” criteria of potential for violent or disruptive protests because almost all of the groups, working on a variety of causes including the death penalty, feminist issues, animal rights and abortion, have organized peaceful protests.

“All of these are pretty hot-button issues, so it will be interesting to see whether the MSP’s stated rational was in fact the real rationale, and whether these groups were spied on as well, which would be very troubling,” Rocah said.

He said even if additional groups weren’t being tracked, state police still have “some more explaining to do on why they chose the groups that they were going to spy on.”

Tyrone Powers, a member of the Baltimore group Children First who participated in an ACLU conference call on the filings, said detectives from Baltimore City’s intelligence unit, visited his home Jan. 18, 2003, looking for him. His wife and daughter directed them to a hotel where he was giving a speech.

Powers said Detective Darrell Merrick and another detective, whom he did not identify, asked what could be done to call off a protest the group was planning outside school headquarters.

“They never indicated why they wanted it called off,” said Powers, who added there was a heavy police presence at the Jan. 21 protest about lead in the school’s drinking water system.

Powers said he told the pair that their conduct was unconstitutional and as a former FBI agent he felt it was unusual. Powers said they told him they already knew who he was and informed him that a file had been opened on him and the upcoming protest.

Rocah said documents obtained in another suit show Baltimore police were reporting to the National Security Agency, “something that they have specifically denied, and I think the documents we have now call those denials into question.”

Rocah said the ACLU has also found that state police had conducted surveillance on a worker-owned Baltimore bookstore named Red Emma’s.

“The Maryland state police will address their requests and provide any information we have that they are entitled to under the law,” state police spokesman Greg Shipley said.

A telephone call by The Associated Press to Baltimore police seeking comment on the claims was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.

The attorney and other ACLU officials also said they were circulating legislation in Annapolis that would specifically prohibit political spying by state police, and said the legislation had drawn support from some lawmakers, whom they declined to identify.

State Police Superintendent Colonel Terrence B. Sheridan said in July that a preliminary review determined the officers involved did not break any laws, although their judgment could be questioned.

Sheridan said the head of the state police’s homeland security division made the decision to begin surveillance after receiving a request from a colleague in another division that was preparing for Vernon Evans’ execution. The surveillance of the groups ended in May 2006, and Evans’ execution was postponed about six months later, according to a timeline handed out by state police.

The surveillance was revealed in documents released by state police after they were sued by the Maryland ACLU, prompting members of Congress and state lawmakers to call for an investigation.

A group headed by a former Maryland attorney general Stephen Sachs plans to release the results of its investigation of the surveillance on Wednesday, but current Attorney General Doug Gansler has said there have not been any allegations of illegal activity.

The documents show undercover officers infiltrated meetings of peace and anti-capital punishment groups for more than a year, spending nearly 300 hours on surveillance.

In August, the ACLU claimed in a court filing that state police have not released all documents related to the surveillance. State police attorney Sharon Benzil said in August that the all documents have been released and the plaintiffs waited too long to sue.