Some excerpts from this site:
"In our America, you should be able to attend a meeting about an issue you care about without having to worry that government spies are entering your name into a database used to track alleged terrorists and drug traffickers," said David Rocah, Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Maryland. "Americans have the right to peaceably assemble with others of a like mind and speak out about what they believe in. For undercover police officers to spend hundreds of hours entering information about lawful political protest activities into a criminal database is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer dollars and does nothing to make us safer from actual terrorists or drug dealers."
The documents obtained in the MPIA lawsuit reveal that for 14 months, MSP's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division sent covert agents to infiltrate the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, a peace group, the Coalition to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), and the Committee to Save Vernon Evans. The agents collectively spent at least 288 hours on their surveillance over the 14-month period. An agent also joined the electronic listserv of the CEDP under an alias using a spoof email address. Agents from the Division monitored private organizing meetings, public forums and events held in several churches, as well as anti-death penalty rallies outside the state's SuperMax facility in Baltimore and in Lawyer's Mall in Annapolis.
Despite the fact that reports from these events consistently said that activists acted lawfully at all times, the agents continued to recommend that the spying continue. Reports of this surveillance were sent to at least seven federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, including the National Security Agency, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Anne Arundel County police departments, and the state General Services police. Logs of the surveillance do not contain any reports of illegal activity, but rather consist entirely of reports on the groups' and individuals' lawful political activities.
Sorry to burst your bubble PM. But alot of things are going on you may not be aware of or in denial of.
http://www.aclu.org/police/spying/36025prs20080717.html
ACLU of Maryland Lawsuit Uncovers Maryland State Police Spying Against Peace and Anti-Death Penalty Groups
Some excerpts from this site:
"In our America, you should be able to attend a meeting about an issue you care about without having to worry that government spies are entering your name into a database used to track alleged terrorists and drug traffickers," said David Rocah, Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Maryland. "Americans have the right to peaceably assemble with others of a like mind and speak out about what they believe in. For undercover police officers to spend hundreds of hours entering information about lawful political protest activities into a criminal database is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer dollars and does nothing to make us safer from actual terrorists or drug dealers."
The documents obtained in the MPIA lawsuit reveal that for 14 months, MSP's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division sent covert agents to infiltrate the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, a peace group, the Coalition to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), and the Committee to Save Vernon Evans. The agents collectively spent at least 288 hours on their surveillance over the 14-month period. An agent also joined the electronic listserv of the CEDP under an alias using a spoof email address. Agents from the Division monitored private organizing meetings, public forums and events held in several churches, as well as anti-death penalty rallies outside the state's SuperMax facility in Baltimore and in Lawyer's Mall in Annapolis.
Despite the fact that reports from these events consistently said that activists acted lawfully at all times, the agents continued to recommend that the spying continue. Reports of this surveillance were sent to at least seven federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, including the National Security Agency, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Anne Arundel County police departments, and the state General Services police. Logs of the surveillance do not contain any reports of illegal activity, but rather consist entirely of reports on the groups' and individuals' lawful political activities.
Sorry to burst your bubble PM. But alot of things are going on you may not be aware of or in denial of.