Far-flung spying preceded '04 GOP convention

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque, N.M., to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mails and filed daily reports with the department's Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

From these operations, run by the department's RNC Intelligence Squad, police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention and some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped "NYPD Secret," the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, records show.

These included members of street-theater companies, church groups and anti-war organizations, as well as environmentalists and foes of the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York elected officials were cited in the reports.

In at least some cases, intelligence on what appeared to be lawful activity was shared with other police departments. A police report on an organization of artists, Bands Against Bush, noted the group was planning concerts Oct. 11, 2003, in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. Between musical sets, the report said, there would be political speeches and videos.

"Activists are showing a well-organized network made up of anti-Bush sentiment; the mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda," said the report, dated Oct. 9, 2003. "Police departments in above listed areas have been contacted regarding this event."

Seattle Police spokeswoman Debra Brown, when contacted Sunday morning, said she did not know if the department received or shared any intelligence from the New York Police Department.

A city ordinance, Brown said, is "extremely strict" in prohibiting the police from collecting information about groups not suspected of criminal activities. The ordinance also restricts how long the police can retain such data, she said.

Records indicate that in addition to sharing information with other police departments, New York undercover officers were active in at least 14 places outside New York — California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montreal, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C. — and in Europe.

The operation was mounted in 2003 after the Police Department, invoking the horrors of the World Trade Center attacks and the prospect of future terrorism, won greater authority from a federal judge to investigate political organizations for criminal activity.

Outlines of the preconvention operations are emerging from records in federal lawsuits brought over mass arrests during the convention, and in greater detail from still-secret reports reviewed by The New York Times.

Paul Browne, chief police spokesman, confirmed the operation had been wide-ranging and said it had been an essential part of preparations for the convention. "Detectives collected information both in-state and out-of-state to learn in advance what was coming our way," Browne said.

Under a Supreme Court ruling, undercover surveillance of political groups generally is legal, but New York police — like those in many other big cities — have operated under special limits as a result of class-action lawsuits filed over police monitoring of civil-rights and anti-war groups during the 1960s.

Before monitoring political activity, police must have "some indication of unlawful activity on the part of the individual or organization to be investigated," U.S. District Court Judge Charles Haight said in a ruling last month.

Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), which represents seven of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention, said New York police stepped beyond the law in the covert surveillance program.

"The police have no authority to spy on lawful political activity, and this wide-ranging NYPD program was wrong and illegal," Dunn said.

"In the coming weeks, the city will be required to disclose to us many more details about its preconvention surveillance of groups and activists, and many will be shocked by the breadth of the Police Department's political surveillance operation."

Police said those complaints were overblown.

For nearly 40 years, the city, civil-liberties lawyers and the NYPD have fought in federal court over how to balance public safety, free speech and the potentially disruptive force of police surveillance.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Raymond Kelly, who became police commissioner in January 2002, "took the position that the NYPD could no longer rely on the federal government alone and that the department had to build an intelligence capacity worthy of the name," Browne said.

David Cohen, the deputy police commissioner for intelligence, contended that surveillance of domestic political activities was essential to fighting terrorism.

In February 2003, the Police Department, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's support, was given broad new authority by Judge Haight to conduct such monitoring. However, a senior police official still must determine there is some indication of illegal activity before an inquiry is launched.

When the city was designated in February 2003 as the site of the 2004 Republican National Convention, the department had security worries — in particular about the possibility of a truck-bomb attack near Madison Square Garden, the site of the convention — and logistical concerns relating to managing huge crowds, Browne said.

"We also prepared to contend with a relatively small group of self-described anarchists who vowed to prevent delegates from participating in the convention or otherwise disrupt the convention by various means, including vandalism," Browne said. "Our goal was to safeguard delegates, demonstrators and the general public alike."

In records reviewed by The New York Times, police intelligence did describe people and groups bent on causing trouble. But the bulk of the reports covered the plans and views of people with no obvious intention of breaking the law.

Many of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention were held for up to two days on minor offenses normally handled with a summons; the city Law Department said the preconvention intelligence justified detaining them all for fingerprinting.

Browne said 18 months of police preparation allowed hundreds of thousands of people to demonstrate while ensuring that GOP delegates were able to hold their convention with few disruptions.

"We attributed the successful policing of the convention to a host of NYPD activities leading up to the RNC, including 18 months of intensive planning," he said. "It was a great success, and despite provocations, such as demonstrators throwing faux feces in the faces of police officers, the NYPD showed professionalism and restraint."