NYPD Spies On #OWS Protesters

Not only are NYPD now engaged in stop and frisk against Black and Hispanic men and monitoring Muslims and Muslim-Americans, but now they are spying on #OccupyWallStreet protesters.

From The New York Times :

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Complain of Police Surveillance

... Though Occupy Wall Street has largely faded from the headlines, organizers are planning springtime demonstrations in an effort to revitalize their movement. And they are troubled by what they consider continued monitoring by the police.

In 2003, citing the dangers of terrorism, a federal judge granted expanded surveillance powers to the New York police, who had previously faced restrictions in monitoring political groups. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others have said the new latitude is essential to keeping the city safe.

But the Police Department’s surveillance efforts have recently gained attention and criticism with reports that officers compiled detailed data on Muslim communities. Now, some Occupy protesters worry that they are being subjected to similar scrutiny.

For the last few months, protest organizers say, police officers or detectives have been posted outside buildings where private meetings were taking place, have visited the homes of organizers and have questioned protesters arrested on minor charges. ...

Undercover officers are generally entitled to attend public political gatherings. Protesters said apparent efforts to keep tabs on them had included officers’ showing up at private meetings and what some described as attempts at intimidation. ...

No word from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn about the ongoing domestic spying, racial profiling, religious profiling, and the monitoring of political activities by the NYPD.

Kelly Defends NYPD Spying

Following criticisms that the NYPD are violating the civil rights and civil liberties of Muslims and Muslim-Americans, NYPD Commish Ray Kelly defended the questionable secret practices of racial- and religious-profiling, as well as unwarranted domestic surveillance.

From The New York Daily News :

Kelly defends spying as essential safety strategy

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly gave an impassioned defense of the NYPD’s controversial Muslim surveillance program Saturday — declaring it essential for the city’s safety.

The tactics, which allegedly include spying on mosques, cafes and shops, have come under fire from Muslim and civil rights groups, but Kelly said the Police Department’s strategy has been “misrepresented.”

“For some, the very act of intelligence gathering seems illegitimate when applied to the crime of terrorism,” Kelly said in his most wide-ranging remarks to date on the hot-button topic.

Meanwhile, no response from New York City Council Speaker Quinn on the subject of NYPD domestic spying on minorities.

NYPD Spied On Muslim Students

Bloomberg defends NYPD Muslim spying at Yale

From The New York Daily News :

Mayor Bloomberg defended the NYPD’s spying on Muslim students at Yale on Tuesday — but only after taking an odd trip down memory lane.

The Associated Press reported Saturday in an ongoing series that an undercover detective went white-water rafting with the students upstate.

“The only white-water rafting I’ve done, I did with my daughter,” Bloomberg said. “I don’t think she had a lot of information that I was interested in.”

The NYPD spying drew harsh criticism from the university’s president, who called it “antithetical to the values of Yale ... and the United States.”

During the trip, the cops took the students’ names and noted how many times a day they prayed.

Agents also trawled Muslim student websites, the AP reported. The students had not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Bloomberg said the sites were available to everybody and “given that we’ve had a dozen people convicted ... including the Underwear Bomber ... of course we are going to look at anything that’s publicly available.”

Underwear-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a plane with nearly 300 people onboard on Christmas Day 2009, was sentenced to life in prison last week.

“This is a dangerous place,” Bloomberg said. “Make no mistake about it. ... The job of our law enforcement is to make sure that they prevent things.”

Bloomberg went on to say that the police department goes where there are allegations.

“That’s what you'd expect them to do. That's what you'd want them to do,” he said. “Remind yourself when you turn out the light tonight.”

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.

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. ""

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.''