(NYPD) Police challenge report detailing surveillance tactics

[sabra]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--nypd-surveillance1222dec22,0,6366341.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Police challenge report detailing surveillance tactics



NEW YORK (AP) _ Police officials on Thursday criticized a report accusing them of using undercover officers to covertly infiltrate and monitor anti-war and other groups who staged protests at last year's Republican National Convention and other events.

The report, published in Thursday's edition of The New York Times, said that videotapes obtained by the newspaper showed New York Police Department officers conducting surveillance on people attending an Iraq war protest, a monthly bicycle ride staged by activists and a vigil for a cyclist who had died in an accident.

The NYPD's top spokesman, Paul Browne, criticized the report as misleading. He said plainclothes officers _ not undercovers _ regularly attend protests to maintain order and stop crimes in progress _ not to spy.

The story "confused plainclothes officers used to prevent and respond to acts of violence and other unlawful activity with undercover officers who conduct intelligence investigations under court-approved guidelines," Browne said in a statement.

[wtbymark]

1. yeeeaaa riiiiight n/t

[High Plains]

2. Splitting hairs isn't going to make this go away...

Nice try, though, NYPD.

[ShockediSay]

14. The Secret Police State; Warrantless Eavesdropping

Round and round we go
Down and down we go
Right Down the toilet

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/RTD/51219001

Okay ... we're only dealing with nasty foreign type people ... what's the big deal? I mean it's not like King George III would abuse this right? Well no - that's simply another lie. The Colorado Springs Gazette tells us "The names and license plate numbers of about 30 people who protested three years ago in Colorado Springs were put into FBI domestic-terrorism files" resulting in peaceful folks who spoke their mind being officially labeled as terrorists! (ACLU: Protesters placed in terror files, The Gazette, 12/09/05) Elsewhere Florida's Palm Beach Post wrote about "When a group of about 20 activists met in Lake Worth last year to talk about how to keep young men and women from joining the military, their ranks included five Quakers, a disabled Boca Raton man and a 79-year-old grandmother. ... But the Pentagon considered their inaugural 2004 meeting a "threat," according to a classified database of information obtained by NBC News that lists information about suspicious people and activity inside the United States." (Pentagon calls Lake Worth peace meeting a 'threat', Palm Beach Post, 12/15/05) And then we have the senior at UMass Dartmouth who was visited by federal agents two months ago after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's "The Little Red Book". (Agents' visit chills UMass Dartmouth senior, SouthCoastToday.com, 12/17/05) Under the guise of 911 we're ostensibly being protected from peaceful protesters, Quakers, the disabled, grandmothers and students pursuing their education!


PS Beware the hoax occasionally planted by the CIA types
Dan Rather (should have) said that

[seriousstan]

3. Plainclothes officers are used in Columbus for 4th fireworks.

I have personally seen them break up 3 fights before any real damage happened. They simply made the drunken fools go seperate ways. Should I worry that they were spying?

I would expect the same tactic at any large gathering.

[baby_mouse]

4. A question.

Why are they in plain clothes?

[seriousstan]

5. They blend in with the crowd and can "appear" when needed.

If the ruffians can't see the police, they don't know where they are.

When the trouble starts, the cops pull out the badges on chains around their necks.

I was very impressed. One of the potential drunken brawls was less than 2 people away from my family. 2 plainclothes simply "appeared". pulled their badge necklaces out and ushered the drunks in different directions.

[Catrina]

9. Personally, I would prefer to move away from

a drunken brawl and have done so quite successfully many times with no injury to me or my family and without the need for undercover police. We are adults, many of us are capable of making adult decisions without a nanny watching over us, or using that as a pretext to spy on the American people.

And had the police presence been obvious, the brawl might not have started in the first place.

This notion that we adults need constant surveillance is ridiculous. Where were they when, a few years ago, they were really needed in the brawl that took place in NYC at a parade when people actually called them or spoke directly to them telling them they were needed?

Seems to me that only people they view as needing 'surveillance' are those who disagree with the government's policies.

[baby_mouse]

11. Well, TBH, I can see serioustan's point.

Big crowds are good places to do crimes if you are going to a large gathering WITH that intention.

doubled edged, I guess....

[ret5hd]

6. exactly...if the true goal is to prevent unlawful act...

a highly visible police uniform should do the trick quite nicely.

[baby_mouse]

10. Um, welll, it really WAS just a question...

Which appears to have been answered. Hum. I can see your point as well.

I find myself kinda split on this one...

[Catrina]

12. Wow! Three fights?

You seem to have the great misfortune of being around fights and brawls a lot. I've never even seen one at a protest rally nor has anyone else I know. The police themselves, according to the report, started the only 'brawl' that happened on that day.

And what kind of cynicism does it take to pretend to be a mourner at a memorial march? How does that have anything to do with 'maintaining the peace'?

If you feel the need to be babysat, and can't simply move on from other people involved in a conflict (although I'd love to know where you came across all these fights) most of the population is quite capable of taking care of such matters by themselves.

We can't go through life being 'protected' ~ a plane could fall on you, eg. Whose going to protect you from that? The world's a dangerous place. My advice, learn to be a little independent, this way you remain safe and at the same time are not complicit in giving up the right to be left alone by the government that many of us value quite highly.

[seriousstan]

17. Red, white and BOOM is an all day affair in Columbus. 700 thousand people

crowd downtown and picnic and party all day. I don't expect to have to run away from a family oriented event. I expect the police to do their job. From what I saw, they did an excellent job, were low profile an didn't interfere with anyone enjoying themselves. We also relax the open container laws to allow coolers and drinking out of cups. The vast majority of people do so responsibly. But out of 700 thousand people you are bound to find some fools.

I don't expect any more protection than my tax dollars should afford me. I also don't think the public should have to engage in a fight when it is well within the range of law enforcement to maintain peace.

I think the police have many more purposes than writing traffic tickets.

The point is, plainclothes police s a reasonable an appropriate form of law enforcement.

[Catrina]

7. What total BS!

What's wrong with wearing a uniform, or identifying themselves as police officers, if they are not there to 'spy'?

We are moving rapidly towards a police state, and each day there is more and more evidence of that. A civil suit might help get the truth out. What were they doing photographing people engaged in a completely legal and Constitutional activity?

I would laugh, if it weren't so tragic, how far they have gone to remove the rights of law-abiding citizens.

I'd like the see the 'court-approved' guidelines his 'plain-clothes' police were working under! If he has nothing to hide, why did they not simply tell their fellow citizens and employers that they were there to protect and serve them, not to spy on them? And what was done with the videos of those law-abiding people?

[Roland99]

8. CYA ain't gonna work this time, "Heckuva job, Browne!"

[kath]

13. yeah, and I'm sure they don't act as agents provocateur, either.

:sarcasm:

[DemInDistress]

15. I'd be more inclined to commit a crime if I didnt see

a uniformed police officer..why the nefarious policy other than to "SPY"?

[Pastiche423]

16. What do you believe?

The videos or their lying eyes?

[Miss Chybil]

18. They wear plain-clothes in order to blend in with the crowd, kind of like

undercover.

[HuffleClaw]

19. plainclothes officers... ...regularly attend protests to maintain order

suuuuuuuure. hahahahhahhahha. who do they think they are fooling?