NYC doesn't want police surveillance records unsealed, fears lawsuits

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/nyregion/26infiltrate.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

City Asks Court Not to Unseal Police Spy Files

By JIM DWYER
Published: March 26, 2007

Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” hurting the city’s ability to defend itself in lawsuits over mass arrests.

In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be “misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public.

“The documents were not written for consumption by the general public,” wrote Peter Farrell, senior counsel in the city’s Law Department. “The documents contain information filtered and distilled for analysis by intelligence officers accustomed to reading intelligence information.”

Because the materials have not yet been used to decide or argue any issues in the civil lawsuits, Mr. Farrell said, “there is no right of public access.”

The documents show that the Police Department’s Intelligence Division sent undercover detectives around the city, the country and the world to collect information on political activists and others planning to demonstrate at the 2004 convention, according to a sampling of records reviewed by The New York Times that were the subject of an article yesterday. The records included intelligence digests and field reports from detectives, known as DD5s.

more...

[tridim]

1. I assume Moscow felt the same way about secret KGB files

Not that NYC is Moscow, but it's the same principle.

[DURHAM D]

2. This is pretty simple - if the records are such that they might

be misinterpreted by the public it goes without saying that the activity was wrong. After all, it is my tax dollars paying for the activity so I get to look at the results. Why is this so hard ?

[CrazyOrangeCat]

3. "not written for consumption by the general public."

Sorry, Mr. Farrell, you little fascist prick, this is America!

Go find a Free Speech Zone, and shove it! :grr:

[maxsolomon]

4. you have do show that there was legitimate suspicion of violence

before authorizing surveillance.

the secret records will show that there was not, and that the spying & mass arrests were a deliberate violation of civil rights.

the sainted NYPD should be worried, and the GOP should be named in the suits, too. they instigated it.

[ThomCat]

5. NYC needs one hell of a scandal.

We need bloomberg and the NYPD to be at the center of a firestorm of their own making.

x(

[Solon]

6. Is it just me, or do any of you find it disturbing that a police department's...

records can be sealed in the first place? I thought they were employed by US, and therefore EVERYTHING they do is the public's business. I can ALMOST understand the need to keep some secrets when related to national security, but I don't think any city has "city security".

[rock]

7. A little late to think of that

Perhaps they should have thought of this before doing the deed.