NYPD Infiltrated Liberal Groups

The Associated Press Reports That Documents Show That NYPD Infiltrated Liberal Groups

From The Associated Press (via CBS News, because The New York Times is boycotting this story, because it is a major embarrassment to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn) :

NEW YORK — Undercover NYPD officers attended meetings of liberal political organizations and kept intelligence files on activists who planned protests around the country, according to interviews and documents that show how police have used counterterrorism tactics to monitor even lawful activities.

The infiltration echoes the tactics the NYPD used in the run-up to New York's 2004 Republican National Convention, when police monitored church groups, anti-war organizations and environmental advocates nationwide. That effort was revealed by The New York Times in 2007 and in an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit over how the NYPD treated convention protesters. ...

As a result of this latest violation of the First Amendment Right to protest, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is encouraging activists to fight back : Don't Spy On Me! The NYCLU's Spy Files Campaign.

Everybody is encouraged to file a Freedom of Information Act request, to find out if the NYPD has been spying on YOU !

Bloomberg's Pattern of NYPD Monitoring of Political Protests

Live Mass Arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge #occupywallstreet - Streaming Video by We are Change

In a flashback to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, >police rounded up and arrested over 700 activists on the Brooklyn Bridge during a political demonstration.

Police said that those activists, who impeded vehicular traffic on the bridge were were arrested. But The New York Times reported that "many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered." Look at this independent video :

Some of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, had their hands bound with plastic ties that the NYPD has used at other mass demonstration. Separately, the NYPD admitted that they police force had taken their own videos of the protesters, who had taken part in the demonstration, deliberately and intentionally tracking and monitoring the peaceful activists.

Attorney Wylie Stecklow, whose law firm represents many of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, said that the pattern of the NYPD's behaviour toward the Occupy Wall Street protesters was reminiscent of the mass arrests that police made during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Video Tapes of 2004 GOP Arrests

Freedom of Speech doesn't exist under Mike Bloomberg's version of New York.

"Shocking video clips of police brutality and arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg directed the NYPD to stifle Constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of assembly by stopping any 'protests' that may embarrass George W. Bush and the Republican party. Clips in this video are two days before the Convention even began, when police arrested 250 people during the Critical Mass bike ride, a non-partisan event which has occurred every month since 1994. Even more shocking, many of those being arrested had nothing to do with the bike ride, but had the misfortune of crossing the street while this was happening. Clips are from the documentary 'Watch This!' by Glass Bead Collective released under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC) license."

Part 1 :

Part 2 :

This is what a police state looks like

Spying For Bush: Bloomberg Used NYPD To Surveil Protesters

A word-for-word reprint of a reader response by orionATL on the TalkLeft.com site :

this is a really important issue,
a central constitutional issue
vis-a-vis the bush administration.
it may seem like a peripheral issue, compared to the iraq invasion, the u.s. a's problem, or the libby trial,
but it is not.
the bush administration has, for the entire 6 years of its existence, suppressed individual, citizen dissent against itself.
the administration has employed local police across the nation, not just in nyc, to harass demonstrators and objectors.
furthermore,
white house personnel have impersonated secret service agents to suppress dissent.
and i would be surprised if the secret service itself had not "co-operated" in the suppression.
at the president's command, protesters who voiced opposition, have been ejected from meetings or speeches for simply
wearing t-shirts with an anti-bush policy message.
this small, quiet scandal is deeply unconstitutional
these are presidential abuses of the CENTRAL free speech the our "founders" had in mind -
need i remind
that that central free speech those founders were focused on and determined to protect was
POLITICAL free speech,
not advertising
not movies
not gossip columns.
specifically,
the central protected speech was speech criticizing elected officials or existing policies.
in short,
the right to publicly disagree with the mayor, the sheriff, the governor, the senator, the president, or, historically, the king.
and NOT be imprisoned for having done so.
like other aspects of its insensitivity to proper public policy in a democracy,
the bush administration has trampled on this core right of american citizens for the entire six years of its term in office - six long years.
these bastards have not a clue about what a democracy is or how it operates.

NYCLU archives of 2004 G.O.P.-NYPD intelligence documents

The NYPD's 2004 Republican National Convention Documents

In 2007, after a federal magistrate judge order the declassification and release of hundreds of pages of surveillance documents relating to the NYPD's security preparations for the 2004 Republican National Convention, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has posted its archives of the intelligence gathering conducted by the NYPD.

Information that can be found among the NYCLU's archives include the basic, mass-arrest process that would take place during the Convention and the agreement between the NYPD and the Hudson River Park Trust about the use of Pier 57 as a mass-arrest holding facility during the Convention.

According to a blog post on The New York Times, the NYCLU was critical of the extent of the city's monitoring of protesters' activities.

"Donna Lieberman, executive director of the civil liberties union, called the surveillance program “broad, clumsy, and often unlawful,” but Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has vigorously defended the program, saying the intelligence-gathering was essential for the convention to proceed peacefully. ""

Bloomberg's Campaign peddles tapes to The New York Post

Mayor Bloomberg has a history of spying on protest groups during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Now, his third term re-election staff have started spying on Bill Thompson's campaign events.

Remember when, back in 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg admitted that he had ordered the NYPD to collect surveillance on groups protesting the Republican National Convention ?

Well, now comes the blogger Roy Edroso of The Village Voice, and he has reported that Mayor Bloomberg's campaign operatives are shopping around secretly-recorded audio tapes to humiliate NYC Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson. It is known that at least one media outlet, The New York Post, has been taken this bait.

"The Post says his operatives sent them a tape of Bill Thompson not reacting when the co-owner of the delightful West Village Brit boite Tea and Sympathy called Christine Quinn a "whore." "

The prefabricated outrage that is being intentionally generated by this scandal is ludicrous. Restauranteur Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett's only wrong-doing was that he had no thesaurus within easy reach; his poor choice of an adjective to describe a sell-out is understandable. When I can't think of a word to describe my disappointment in someone, I usually do turn to profanity as a literary clutch.

Meanwhile, it seems Nixon-esque for Mayor Bloomberg's political campaign to go around audio-taping his rival's campaign events. Should that be cause for more concern than the wrong use of the word, "whore?"

Flashback to 2004 G.O.P. domestic spying by NYPD

Mayor Defends Spying by Police Before G.O.P. Convention

By DIANE CARDWELL; JIM DWYER CONTRIBUTED REPORTING.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Published: March 28, 2007

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday defended police spying on potential protesters in advance of the 2004 Republican National Convention, saying that it was necessary for security during an uneasy time.

''We had a fundamental responsibility to learn whether groups might include any potential terrorists or anarchists planning to cause or take advantage of any disruptions,'' Mr. Bloomberg told reporters at a news conference. Toward that end, he said, the Police Department monitored those who said they intended vandalism or disruptions and, he added, ''in a few instances, we did keep track of groups or individuals who did plan to come to New York for the R.N.C. convention and who might have been planning violent acts.''

The administration has come under sharp criticism for its tactics with protesters before and during the convention, which included denying permission to rally in much of Central Park, sending undercover officers to infiltrate protests, making mass arrests of demonstrators and detaining many of them for days at a Hudson River pier.

But the scope of the preconvention operations, in which officers traveled widely, is just emerging from records in federal lawsuits brought as a result of the mass arrests as well as from still secret reports reviewed by The New York Times.

In defending the program, Mr. Bloomberg said that everything had been in accordance with court guidelines and was aimed at protecting the city and showing its recovery at a time when the presence of President Bush and members of Congress made it an even more inviting terror target.

''We were not keeping track of political activities,'' he said. ''We have no interest in doing that.''

But the records show that the police did covertly monitor political activity. Virtually every intelligence report, even those about expressly peaceful groups, described the political viewpoints of the organizations.

For example, a Feb. 6, 2004, police report said that Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, an antiwar organization, would speak at a conference later that month at City University Graduate Center. Her presence, a headline in the report said, ''indicates a reinforcement of ties between organizers and expanding activist youth movement.''

Stu Loeser, Mr. Bloomberg's chief spokesman said: ''We weren't seeking political information. We were seeking security information. It wasn't because of the political views expressed. The only concern was what security ramifications came from the activities of those groups.''