By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK- A civil rights group, citing the First Amendment, asked a judge to stop the police department from routinely videotaping political demonstrations.
The New York Civil Liberties Union said in papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the police department adopted a regulation on Sept. 10, 2004, claiming it may photograph and videotape all political activity in the city without restriction.
The surveillance was noted by participants in protests during the 2004 Republican National Convention, especially those who wanted to exercise their First Amendment rights anonymously, NYCLU attorney Arthur Eisenberg said.
“This has a wide impact on the common citizen exercising fundamental constitutional rights,” he said.
The city’s law office had received the legal papers and was evaluating them, special counsel Gail Donoghue said, but she was not prepared to comment further.
The NYCLU filed the legal challenge with a judge who oversees a consent decree that established the Handschu guidelines, named for the lead plaintiff in a case that included 1960s radical activist Abbie Hoffman and others as plaintiffs.
The consent decree settled a 1971 lawsuit brought by the Black Panther Party alleging that police engaged in widespread surveillance of legitimate political activity and distributed the information elsewhere, including to law enforcement groups.
The NYCLU said in the court papers that the New York Police Department’s new interpretations of Handschu guidelines use what was meant as an exception to fight terrorism “to wipe out the rules limiting NYPD investigation of political activity.”
The exception “for the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities” permits police officers to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally.
The police department has used the exception to videotape peaceful political gatherings and to retain all the videotapes indefinitely, the NYCLU said.