COPS SUE COPS FOR...                                         SPYING ON COPS
By Sarah Ferguson

(May 2006) The irony couldn't be more clear. New York City police and their union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, are suing the New York Police Department (NYPD) for spying on them at rallies and demonstrations held during their contract dispute with the city in the summer of 2004.

The lawsuit was originally filed back in August 2004, in response to the city's efforts to rein in protesting cops, who were staging rowdy pickets and rallies over pay hikes and benefits in the weeks leading up to the Republican Convention in New York. Off-duty police had even taken to "stalking" Mayor Bloomberg at public appearances, and there was talk of cops calling in sick during the Convention.

In addition to surveillance, the cops' suit, currently in the "discovery" stage, challenges the NYPD for herding protesting cops into pens, out of "sight and sound" of the target of their ire: Mayor Bloomberg. Now that's a familiar complaint!

The suit, which was also filed on behalf of the firefighters union and other police unions, charges that the NYPD's own surveillance of off-duty cops who attended these rallies was so heavy-handed and "intimidating" that it violated their civil rights. The cops' lawyer even called videotaping of the cops a form of "political harassment."

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Activists at anti-war demos, Critical Mass bike rides and other protestors have found themselves regularly under the heavy gaze of camera-toting Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) officers seemingly recording their every move.

"For years we have complained about the NYPD videotaping protesters," says Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), which has been fighting to curb police surveillance of activists since filing its landmark Handschu case in 1971 [after which the NYPD agreed to not videotape and photograph demonstrators–Ed.] "It's nice to see that police officers now agree with us. It sure is ironic, however, how cops turn into the biggest advocates of constitutional rights when they become the targets of police misconduct."

Following the Republican National Convention in August of 2004, when the NYPD equipped a Fuji blimp with a high-powered camera to hone in on street protests, the NYCLU fired off yet another round of legal papers to challenge the blanket surveillance of political protests, as well as the NYPD's new practice of retaining tapes and photos for as long as it deems necessary.

"There's been a lot of developments coming to light about police videotaping of protesters, so the claims in our case are dovetailing with the First Amendment claims brought by the Civil Liberties Union," explained the cops' lawyer Elizabeth McNammara.

So will this police suit help the NYCLU's case? "Anything that makes the public more aware of the intimidating effect of police surveillance helps. When the police say it, that helps," says Dunn.

Activists found news of the cops' suit a bit galling, but were nevertheless pleased. "It just shows that this is too much already, if even the police are upset about it," says Bill DiPaolo of Times Up!, the ecology group that helps promote the monthly Critical Mass bike rides, which have been subject to much undercover cop surveillance.

Lately, Times Up! volunteers have taken to filming the cops that come to spy on bikers during the mass rides. "We videotape them videotaping us. Since we've started doing it, we've noticed a significant decrease in the number of [police] who show up to videotape. But that may be because it's become an issue in the press," says DiPaolo.

Perhaps the cops suing the cops should trying videotaping those cops too.