Constitutional Law

Md. Police Provide Detail On Spy Program Targeting Activists

Maryland state police authorities have provided more detail about  a far-reaching spy program that tagged opponents of the death penalty and Iraq war as terrorists. The Washington Post reports that Maryland State Police Superintendent Terrance B. Sheridan acknowledged during a Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing that the program, launched in 2005 – 2006 during Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s administration, logged the names of 53 nonviolent activists in government databases that track terrorism suspects.

Sheridan told the state senators that letters were being sent to the activists to notify them that their names would be removed from the databases. “The names don’t belong there,” he said.

The program was uncovered in July and a state independent agency has criticized it as “overreaching.” State Senator Jamie Raskin (D), a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, wrote in July for The Post about state and federal agents spying on meetings of the Maryland Campaign to End the Death Penalty. “Like most Americans, I had assumed that the billions of dollars in federal homeland security funds channeled to the states went to monitor al-Qaeda sleeper cells planning terrorist attacks, or extremists who blow up health clinics and federal buildings. It never dawned on me that tax dollars collected during Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich’s time in office would be paying for agents to infiltrate Quaker peace groups and anti-death penalty activists in Maryland.”

Former police superintendent, Thomas Hutchins, defended the program, telling the committee that, “I don’t believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to disrupt the government.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on October 08, 2008 (boomark / email).