There was a recent demonstration by parents, students, and teachers to protest Mayor Bloomberg's planned mass closings of public schools and their replacement by charter schools.
The groups had legal permission to protest in front of Bloomberg's mansion, but at the last minute they had to move across the street. The police still took photos of the group, though it was a peaceful gathering.
From Leonie Haimson at Huffington Post:
Meanwhile, a reporter from the Village Voice named Steven Thrasher caught members of the Police Department on videotape taking photographs from the roof and inside of a private school directly adjacent to the mayor's house. Check out
this chilling video.In 1985, the federal court ruled that it is illegal for the New York City police to take photos of protesters, unless they have cause to believe that a crime may be committed.Here is more from Haimson's post.
Police Surveillance of Parents Protesting Bloomberg's Privatization of Public SchoolsOn Thursday, January 21, hundreds of parents, students and teachers protested on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, across the street from where Mayor Bloomberg lives, chanting and holding signs against his proposals to force mass closings of public schools and their takeover by charter schools. With the help of famed civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, members of this group had earlier sued in federal court to gain the right to protest directly in front of Bloomberg's mansion, on the north side of E. 79 Street.
Though Judge Alvin Hellerstein had concurred that they had such a right, at the last minute the city appealed, and on the morning of the protest, the Federal Circuit Court reversed his decision, forcing us to protest across the street.
So here we were, on the south side of E. 79 Street, adults, youth and children, of all races and ethnicities, peacefully exercising our constitutional right under the First Amendment, urging the mayor to halt his policies, which many of us believe are undermining the strength and stability of our public school system.
Turns out the police said the surveillance was all about "planning crowd control." Really.
The police responded to inquiries from the press yesterday, by claiming that they were taking pictures for "for crowd control planning purposes," which, on the face of it, is absurd.
The blogger reminds us of a terribly scary incident that happened in 2007 to someone who once favored all these changes to public schools. Diane Ravitch did a complete turn-around and became critical publicly. The NY DOE assigned employees to monitor her closely. This is scary stuff indeed.
This sort of intimidation and surveillance does not occur in a vacuum. In 2007, it was revealed that officials from the city's Department of Education had assigned an employee to tape Diane Ravitch, one of the administration's most articulate critics, and was keeping a dossier on her. They even persuaded Kathy Wylde, head of the NYC Partnership, the city's Chamber of Commerce, to publish an op-ed in the NY Post personally attacking her.
They also did some monitoring of the internet.
Subsequently, it was revealed that DOE officials also had assigned several employees to closely monitor listservs and blogs where parents, teachers and advocates discussed and criticized their educational policies.
Diane Ravitch wrote about this surveillance in 2007 at the Education Week blog.
Scare Tactics in NYCI received a phone call late last Monday afternoon (Oct. 29) from an editor at the New York Post, offering me a “heads up.” He said, “Just wanted to let you know that there will be a personal attack on you in tomorrow’s paper, on the opinion page.” That was a bit unsettling, to say the least. A few hours later, I received an email from a journalist friend that contained the actual article, with the byline of Kathryn Wylde, the CEO of the New York City Partnership, the organization that represents major corporations in the city. Somehow the article was in circulation before it was published, and the last email—transmitting the article to the Post—was written by Howard Rubenstein, who owns a major public relations firm that is very active in New York politics. So, it was clear that the article came to the Post from a PR firm, and it was not clear who wrote it.
The next day, the article appeared, with a headline calling me a "Hypocritical Critic.” The trigger for the blast at me evidently was an article I had written the previous week, in which I pointed out that the teachers’ union had outsmarted the Mayor and the Chancellor in their recent negotiation over performance pay. Although the Mayor and Chancellor claimed that they had won “merit pay,” what they got instead was a schoolwide bonus plan whose distribution would be decided at every individual school and which might or might not include non-teachers such as secretaries who belong to the union.
But instead of debating the issues, the article was a personal slam at me, attempting to destroy my reputation and credibility because I was not supporting every move of the Klein regime.
But the really bad part came when she found out that the attacks on her had been done in conjunction with the NY Department of Education.
The very next day, as I was pondering whether to respond, an article appeared in the New York Sun documenting the fact that Wylde’s attack had been written in concert with operatives at the New York City Department of Education. The Sun reporter, Elizabeth Green, wrote that the DOE had been keeping a file on me, comparing my statements past and present, and this dossier was the basis of the Wylde attack on me.
Ravitch continued:
The fact that they compiled a dossier on me and then turned it over to someone to write an attack is a frightening misuse of government power. They think they did nothing wrong. They think that if journalists and academics can compile files on people, so can they. They forget that they are not journalists or academics: They are government. Wouldn’t you think they have enough to do managing 1,500 schools without having time to pursue those who dare to question their policies?
I forgot to mention one more thing. I discovered last spring that someone from the Department of Education press office was taping my public lectures. The first time I thought it was amusing. The second time I thought it was weird. The third time I thought it was scary. Now I realize that I was under surveillance.
It is not popular to criticize the new Democratic agenda on education. I will try not to forget the most important sentence in the article, something that makes one wonder if it is still occurring.
Subsequently, it was revealed that DOE officials also had assigned several employees to closely monitor listservs and blogs where parents, teachers and advocates discussed and criticized their educational policies.
The NY Department of Education forgot they were government, and they intruded on the private life of a critic of their policy.
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