In a rebuke of a surveillance practice greatly expanded by the New York Police Department after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal judge ruled today that the police must stop the routine videotaping of people at public gatherings unless there was an indication that unlawful activity may occur.
Nearly four years ago, at the request of the city, the same judge, Charles S. Haight, had given the police greater authority to investigate political, social and religious groups.
In today’s ruling, however, Judge Haight, of the Manhattan federal court, found that the Police Department had ignored the milder limits that New York City had agreed to in 2003.
Citing two events in 2005 — a march in Harlem and a demonstration by homeless people in front of the Upper East Side home of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — the judge said the city offered scant justification for videotaping the people involved.
“There was no reason to suspect or anticipate that unlawful or terrorist activity might occur,” he wrote, “or that pertinent information about or evidence of such activity might be obtained by filming the earnest faces of those concerned citizens and the signs by which they hoped to convey their message to a public official.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/15/nyregion/15cnd-police.html?_r=1&oref=slogin