The lawsuit by the police union brings a distinctive voice to the charged debate over how the city has monitored political protest since Sept. 11. The off-duty officers faced a "constant threat of arrest," Officer Liddy testified [in a deposition], all but echoing the complaint by activists for other causes that the city has effectively "criminalized dissent." ...
At the core of all three cases are questions about the expanded powers the police were granted after the 2001 attacks, and how much the department needs to know about the politics of people who are expressing their views.
In 2003, a federal judge eased longstanding and strict limits on surveillance of political activity at the request of lawyers from the city's corporation counsel office, who argued that the Police Department needed broader authority to use such tactics to fight terrorism.
Since then, police officers in disguise have taken part in demonstrations, an approach the Police Department says it used before receiving the expanded powers; other officers have made hundreds of hours of videotapes of people involved in protests and rallies, very few of whom were charged with breaking any law. Neither form of surveillance, the city argues, violates the Constitution.
The City has a point. Videotaping what happens in a public place does not violate the constitution, but that is an oversimplistic view of one issue: The Fourth Amendment. The City did receive some complaints of harassment of others, but how bad is it? It is but an excuse for something else?
The protesters also have the counterpoint. What is the NYPD going to do with the videotape? If they are going to use it to make up a list of future surveillees or targets for disciplinary action, then the protestors have a right to worry. Reports will be made; dossiers compiled; free speech threatened. And that is the issue, and it is a First Amendment claim.
The more things change, the more they seem the same.
First, the Nixonian paranoia in the White House, then the potential wiretapping of every international telephone call, then this. In the Republican interest of smaller government, they let the locals do the local surveillance.
