The New York Times- August 7, 2007
Judge Orders Release of Reports on ’04 Surveillance
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
A federal judge yesterday rejected New York City’s efforts to prevent the release of nearly 2,000 pages of raw intelligence reports and other documents detailing the Police Department’s covert surveillance of protest groups and individual activists before the Republican National Convention in 2004.
In a 20-page ruling, Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV ordered the disclosure of hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who compiled dossiers on protest groups in a huge operation that the police said was needed to head off violence and disruptions at the convention.
But at the behest of the city and with the concurrence of civil liberties lawyers representing plaintiffs who were swept up in mass arrests during the convention, the judge agreed to the deletion of sensitive information in the documents to protect the identities of undercover officers and confidential informants and to safeguard police investigative methods and the privacy of individuals caught up in investigations.
The city had largely based its contention for nondisclosure on the need to protect those identities and methods, and had also argued against disclosure because the public might misinterpret the documents or the news media sensationalize them.
But the civil liberties lawyers insisted that the documents — even without the sensitive materials — were needed to show in court that the police had overstepped legal boundaries in arresting, detaining and fingerprinting hundreds of people instead of handing out summonses for minor offenses.
The ruling was the latest development in the long-running case, which posed thorny questions about the free speech rights of protesters and the means used by law enforcement officials to maintain public order.
It appeared that the plaintiffs, who had denounced the police for trampling on the civil liberties of protesters who were fingerprinted and detained at length for minor offenses, had largely won the day, while the city had achieved a more limited objective.
The city and the Police Department have come under intense scrutiny over the surveillance tactics, in which for more than a year before the convention undercover officers traveled to cities across the country, and to Canada and Europe, to conduct covert observations of people who planned to attend. But beyond potential troublemakers, those placed under surveillance included street theater companies, church groups, antiwar activists, environmentalists, and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies.
And as the convention unfolded, more than 1,800 people were arrested, mostly for minor violations, and many were herded into pens at a Hudson River pier and fingerprinted instead of being released on summonses or desk appearance tickets, which are more customary for such minor charges.
As scores of federal lawsuits challenging the mass arrests on Aug. 31, 2004, were filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, with plaintiffs claiming wrongful detentions of up to two days and other violations by the police to keep protesters off the streets, the outlines of the extensive covert surveillance operation began to emerge from court records.
In March, The New York Times disclosed details of the sweeping operation, including a sample of raw intelligence documents and summaries of observations from field agents and the police cyberintelligence unit. Some plaintiffs and their lawyers, seeking to bolster their cases, asked the court to disclose the documents. In May, Judge Francis allowed the disclosure of 600 pages of secret documents relating to preconvention security preparations.
But a second batch of documents, including pictures and reports by undercover agents detailing which protest groups were infiltrated and the results of the surveillance operations, remained in contention. The city argued that disclosure would reveal sources, methods and other information that might compromise current and future investigations, while the plaintiffs contended that the reports would disprove city claims that the protesters planned to engage in violence, and would show that mass arrests had been unnecessary.
In his ruling yesterday, Judge Francis acknowledged that some information in the documents needed to be protected. He himself edited out what he regarded as privileged law enforcement information in many “field intelligence reports” from agents covering confidential sources and techniques. And he did not order the release of documents in which the Republican convention was not mentioned.
But he rebuffed city arguments that general information gathered about an organization would necessarily jeopardize confidential police matters. “It is difficult to imagine how someone could determine the identity of an undercover officer simply from the fact that he or she was present at a meeting or protest attended by dozens, if not hundreds, of people,” the judge declared.
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