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Home » News » Archives » ACLU and Nobel Peace Prize Award Laureate American Friends Service Committee Seek Files on Infiltration by Chicago Police in 2002
ACLU and Nobel Peace Prize Award Laureate American Friends Service Committee Seek Files on Infiltration by Chicago Police in 2002 April 25, 2005 CHICAGO - Chicago Police should disclose the files of their questionable infiltration of meetings in which the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) planned a peaceful demonstration at a major international business conference in November 2002, according to a petition filed in federal court today. Acting together, the AFSC and ACLU are seeking to enforce the consent decree in ACLU v. City of Chicago, popularly known as the Red Squad case. The organizations today asked U.S. District Court Judge Joan Gottschall to order the release of any documents not already destroyed relating to the infiltration of the AFSC by Chicago Police around the time of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD). Ironically, at the same time that police officers were surreptitiously monitoring the AFSC planning meetings in advance of the TABD, AFSC leaders were meeting with the leadership of the Chicago Police Department to ensure that planned demonstrations would go forward without violence or disruption. An internal audit released in February 2004 of CPD investigations related to First Amendment activity - a report required annually under the modified consent decree in the case - revealed the infiltration of the AFSC. That audit, which became the subject of several news stories, suggested that there was an "insufficient basis" for police officers to attend small planning meetings directed by the AFSC. Since 2001, when the City was relieved of the reasonable and necessary requirements in the original Red Squad decree, the Police Department has enacted the most lax guidelines for investigation of lawful First Amendment activities of any law enforcement agency in the country. Without any public discussion or notice, the City has abandoned the traditional requirement of a connection between even a threat of crime and the investigation of persons and organizations engaged in political speech and association. The FBI and virtually every big city police department in the country require a more demanding, specific, and rationally related basis for investigation than does the City of Chicago. When reports of the infiltration were made public, the ACLU and AFSC immediately sought documents from CPD about the infiltration. The City first stated that the documents were destroyed in September 2003, around the same time that CPD officials were being questioned about the AFSC investigation for the internal audit. Recently, the City said it found some portion of the file but refuses to produce the information to the AFSC and ACLU. "We were dismayed to read in the local press that Chicago police officers were monitoring our planning sessions while at the very same time our staff was meeting with the CPD General Counsel so that the police would know our plans," said Michael McConnell, Great Lakes Regional Director for AFSC. "The harmful impact on AFSC continues to this day. The public identification of our organization as the target of this unnecessary investigation inhibits people from joining our effort to organize and mobilize individuals on behalf of the social justice issues at the core of our agenda. We hope today's court action results in showing that the investigation of a peaceful group with a long and recognized history of non-violence was not justified." The petition filed today asks the court to order discovery related to the basis and manner of investigation of AFSC in 2002. It also seeks a ruling that the City violated the consent decree because the CPD publicly identified AFSC as a target of investigation and purposefully destroyed documents related to that investigation. After the infiltration of AFSC went public in 2004, the ACLU and AFSC asked the police for the files related to this matter. After months of exchanging letters and telephone calls, Chicago officials in January stated that the information had been destroyed. The ACLU and AFSC subsequently learned that the files were destroyed under a new General Order that allowed materials about First Amendment investigations to be destroyed before they were shared with independent auditors responsible for a five year external audit of CPD activities required by the consent decree. This new order - and the destruction of the AFSC files - came about in September 2003, just as internal auditors were raising questions about this investigation. Complicating matters even further, the City has produced at least some parts of the AFSC file in response to court order in separate litigation being heard in the federal district court. "There are two central issues now before the court," said ACLU of Illinois Legal Director Harvey Grossman. "First, there is the question of how this intrusive investigation that has done harm to this peaceful organization can be justified - an issue that can be analyzed fully only through discovery. Additionally, there is the very real question of whether the CPD is fulfilling its obligation to submit a thorough audit of its First Amendment investigations if police are able to destroy documents about such investigations before independent auditors required by the decree are allowed to review those documents. " A modified consent decree has been in force since March 2001, replacing a document dating back to the 1980s, when the ACLU of Illinois and other organizations - including the AFSC - negotiated conditions to end the surveillance of religious and political groups by the Chicago Police Department. Groups like the League of Women Voters, Operation PUSH and the Independent Voters of Illinois as well as individuals, including former Chicago City Council member Leon Despres, Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., Studs Terkel, Dick Simpson and Dr. Quentin Young were subjected to unlawful surveillance and the disruption of lawful political activities. "The notion that lower-level officers can destroy an investigation file before being reviewed by both independent and the City's own auditors allows wrongful spying to go undetected," added the ACLU's Grossman. "The City Council should hold hearings similar to those recently completed in the District of Columbia, and mandate, by ordinance, the restraints necessary to properly balance our freedoms and our safety. This important and sensitive duty cannot safely be left to the police alone." |
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