State police soon may come under fire at a hearing among state lawmakers who are questioning the authority of spies who infiltrated peace and anti-death penalty activist groups for more than a year.
“We want to figure out what happened, what went wrong and whether there needs to be a set of legislation guidelines for when state police can snoop on law-abiding citizens,” said Sen. Brian Frosh, chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee.
American Civil Liberties Union representatives exposed a 14-month, 288-hour operation in which undercover state police from the Homeland Security and Intelligence division attended protests and activists? meetings from March 2005 to May 2006.
The office of Attorney General Douglas Gansler released the documents this past week because of a lawsuit the ACLU filed requesting the public records, but his spokeswoman said Tuesday that Gansler would not comment on any violation of civil rights at this time.
In September, state lawmakers plan to review the investigation and discuss internal controls on police power that would prohibit state police from spying unless they suspect criminal activity.
“There?s plenty of crime to chase in Maryland, and I?m not sure that snooping on law-abiding citizens is the best way to employ the crime-fighting apparatus we have, but the deeper concern is that people have the constitutional right to object to government policy,” said Frosh, D-Montgomery.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., agreed with state lawmakers about preserving civil liberties.
“All Americans have the right to speak out on the issues they care about,” she said.
“The Constitution guarantees this right, and it must be protected by all levels of government.”
Gov. Martin O?Malley does not believe legislation to monitor police power is necessary at this time, said his spokeswoman Christine Hansen.
He has blasted the administration of former Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr. for allowing the surveillance to continue.
“While the state police need the tools and the resources necessary to legally investigate credible threats against public safety, the governor has been clear that any and all investigations that the state police conduct should be based on those credible threats,” Hansen said.
“The governor has had lengthy discussions with [State Police Superintendent Col. Terrence] Sheridan, and he?s confident that police will not undertake investigations without evidence of wrongdoing.”
Police documents show agents monitored several activist groups for civil disobedience, including the Coalition to End the Death Penalty and the peace organization Baltimore Pledge of Resistance.
Police also added activists? names to a law enforcement database of people suspected of being terrorists or drug traffickers, according to the documents.
The investigation?s findings were then shared with various federal, state and county agencies.
State police have maintained they did not act illegally and investigations only ensued when criminal activity was suspected.
