A Mississippi congressman who chairs a House committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security is leading a charge to scrutinize the Maryland State Police investigation into peace and anti-death penalty groups.
Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson has sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security requesting information about any federal dollars that were provided to the Maryland State Police.
The request comes a week after documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union showed state police spent 288 hours over 14 months in 2005 and 2006 spying on two anti-death penalty groups and one peace organization.
Thompson said he believes the spying, which took place during RepublicanGov. Robert Ehrlich?s administration, was politically motivated and wrote in his letter that the surveillance of peaceful groups with no ties to terrorism is “a deplorable use of taxpayer funds.”
The Maryland General Assembly is also planning hearings on the matter.
The state police documents show police agents kept watch of private organizing committees, events held in several churches in nearly every corner of the state, and rallies in Baltimore and Annapolis. In one case, an officer infiltrated an e-mail list.
The information obtained was passed on to federal, county and city law enforcement agencies, and the surveillance continued despite reports that said activists were acting lawfully at all times.
State police superintendent Col. Terrence B. Sheridan said in a news release that the “department does not inappropriately curtail the expression or demonstration of the civil liberties of protesters or organizations acting lawfully.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
