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New spy policy challenged { February 21 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E1194201%257E,00.htmlhttp://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E1194201%257E,00.html
New spy-file policy challenged
Required police audit overdue, panel finds
By Amy Herdy
Denver Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 21, 2003 - Heavily criticized for not following any type of policy for years as it collected spy files on peaceful protesters, the Denver Police Department apparently has already violated its new policy, in place only a few months.
That and other observations were made at a public hearing of the Public Safety Review Commission on Thursday night, where more than a dozen people asked the commission for accountability of the Police Department.
Review committee chairman Brian Muldoon called aspects of the spy files "really reprehensible" and promised to examine their existence and future prevention.
Muldoon observed that the Police Department has already missed a deadline, a fact that was brought to light by speaker Gail Bundy. Bundy, a writer and Denver resident, asked for the results of an audit that under the new policy, implemented in October, is supposed to be conducted on a quarterly basis for its first year.
No quarterly review has been done, Muldoon told Bundy, to which she replied, "So what you are telling me is that this policy, newly written, is not being followed."
Time and again, speakers told the seven-member panel of violations of their civil rights by the Denver police, who either never had an intelligence policy since the unit's inception in the 1950's or who repeatedly violated it by keeping thousands of spy files.
For some, "protesting is the only way we can be heard," said Anita Cameron, a member of ADAPT, an organization that focuses on the civil rights of Americans with disabilities.
"(Officials) ignore our needs and our requests and put us in a position of having to demonstrate," Cameron said, and then be labeled by police as "terrorists, militants and radicals."
For speaker Pavlos Stavropoulos, the spy files had nothing to do with criminal intelligence. "They are political intelligence files," said Stavropoulos, who, like most of the speakers, has a spy file.
And while Denver officers are under investigation for double dipping in off-duty jobs, he said, no one has been disciplined for the spy files.
"So when some money has been misplaced, it's very serious. When the Constitution's been put through the shredder, we don't really care about the damage," he said.
Police officials could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
At the hearing, only one person spoke on their behalf.
"If you hamstring the police from gathering intelligence," said neighborhood advocate Lisa Dobson, "then all they can do is be reactive, which means come in and clean up the mess once it is too late to prevent it."
One speaker said she had little hope of actual reform.
"I am testifying today, not because I believe the PSRC can really do anything," said Marge Tanawaki, "but in the hope that calling attention to the methods and behavior of the authorities might stave off the fascist state I see descending inexorably upon this city, state and nation."
The hearing was part of ongoing litigation over Denver's spy files.
After learning of the existence of 3,200 individual and 208 group files in March, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of six plaintiffs, challenging the department's custom of spying on peaceful protesters, maintaining the files and sharing the files with other law enforcement agencies.
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