NYPD spied broadly prior to '04 GOP convention

Oh, yes, the terrorists won, all right.

Using the Internet to identify targets, the New York City Police Department conducted an enormous, possibly illegal, nationwide spy campaign on political activists of all stripes prior to the 2004 Republican National Convention held in that city.

According to this morning's New York Times, the systematic spy program dispersed detectives across the country to infiltrate political groups by befriending members, attending their meetings and maintaining e-mail contact.

From the Times story:

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.

An official of the New York Civil Liberties Union called the program "wrong and illegal" and predicted that forthcoming document revelations will leave "many will be shocked by the breadth of the Police Department's political surveillance operation."

Here is how the Times described the operation:

In the records reviewed by The Times, some of the police intelligence concerned people and groups bent on causing trouble, but the bulk of the reports covered the plans and views of people with no obvious intention of breaking the law.

By searching the Internet, investigators identified groups that were making plans for demonstrations. Files were created on their political causes, the criminal records, if any, of the people involved and any plans for civil disobedience or disruptive tactics.

From the field, undercover officers filed daily accounts of their observations on forms known as DD5s that called for descriptions of the gatherings, the leaders and participants, and the groups' plans.

Inside the police Intelligence Division, daily reports from both the field and the Web were summarized in bullet format. These digests - marked "Secret" - were circulated weekly under the heading "Key Findings."

Many of the findings, including those that indicated no criminal activity, were shared with police departments in other states.

How far overboard did the spying go? The Times story describes the case of Joshua Kiberg, who master's thesis project was to design a "wireless bicycle" that would carry a mobile phone, laptop and "spray tubes that could squirt messages received over the Internet onto the sidewalk or street." His resultant troubles sound funny now, but most assuredly were not at the time:

The messages were printed in water-soluble chalk, a tactic meant to avoid a criminal mischief charge for using paint, an intelligence report noted. Mr. Kinberg's bicycle was "capable of transferring activist-based messages on streets and sidewalks," according to a report on July 22, 2004.

"This bicycle, having been built for the sole purpose of protesting during the R.N.C., is capable of spraying anti-R.N.C.-type messages on surrounding streets and sidewalks, also supplying the rider with a quick vehicle of escape," the report said. Mr. Kinberg, then 25, was arrested during a television interview with Ron Reagan for MSNBC's "Hardball" program during the convention. He was released a day later, but his equipment was held for more than a year.

Those of us who do not live in New York City have a difficult time imaging the level of concern and appreciating the lengths to which reasonable people might go to lessen the risks of another major terrorism incident. However, I personally find it equally difficult to imagine that a majority of New Yorkers are willing to go this far.

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