Maryland State Police are as good at identifying terrorists as former Mayor, Governor and Comptroller William Donald Schaefer is at keeping his mouth shut. But their shortcomings are not lovable or laughable. They are at best ridiculous and at worst dangerous to the health of our democracy and the lives of those they stalked for at least 14 months and labeled as terrorists with no just cause. Add to that the police’s refusal to show the 53 peace and animal rights activists, among whom were nuns, their full files and the agency’s behavior surpasses criminal to become systematically corrupt.
The First Amendment to our Constitution protecting free speech and prohibiting the government from making laws abridging that speech is first for a reason.
Our Framers knew that power corrupts and wanted to make explicit the rights of the average citizen to speak truth to that power — and to say anything else silly and stupid and uplifting. And that is just what those activists were doing by attending death penalty protests or those in support of animal rights or against the Iraq war. The scary thing is some of the supposed activists on the police’s list claim they never attended any protests and yet still were targeted. So is the fact that a group outside of Baltimore was watched, contradicting the police’s claim that only Baltimore groups were targeted. Are there any more lies police want to reveal?
That the Maryland State Police chose to violate the First Amendment through back-door means shows how important it is to hold them accountable for their behavior to prevent future abuses.
The offense should also make Marylanders question the ability of state police to keep us safe from real terrorists. If their judgment is so poor as to waste more than a year tracking those merely exercising a basic right, who weren’t they watching? We don’t remember the 9/11 hijackers rallying at state houses for jihad.
At the very least the state police must release the full files to activists, not the heavily redacted ones that police claim only relate to police procedure and not the individual. We have no reason to trust that is the truth. Besides, if police procedure is what caused them to improperly monitor people, it should be made public and purged from protocol. Continuing to justify and hide inept and illegal behavior will only undermine the police’s authority and distract the agency from serving and protecting Marylanders.
