NYPD Admits to Surveillance Project

New York, NY —

The NYPD has acknowledged that it conducted an extensive surveillance campaign before the 2004 Republican National Convention that included following and monitoring political activists around the US.

And this morning, The New York Times reports that the city has asked the court to keep hundreds of still-secret records involving the surveillance sealed. Lawyers for the city are concerned that the media will "fixate and sensationalize" on records if they're revealed. WNYC's Arun Venugopal has more.

For 18 months, undercover police officers tracked anarchists and anti-war demonstrators who planned to converge on New York for the Republican convention. The story was first reported in The New York Times. According to police spokesman Paul Browne, all surveillance was lawful and only focused on those planning vandalism or violence.

He also credits the operation with preventing any acts of street violence, such as what took place in Seattle during the World Trade Organization conference in 1999. But, according to Christopher Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the police illegally targeted many activists with no history of violence.

And he said there's nothing to suggest the practice has stopped. For WNYC, I'm Arun Venugopal.