Police Spied on Activists In Md.

In a letter sent yesterday, the ACLU asked O'Malley to order any surveillance stopped and demand that the state police make public the full scope of the groups and activities monitored. O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the letter has been referred to the governor's legal office. "The ACLU is making an allegation, and we're looking into it," he said.

Rocah, of the ACLU, said the decision to retain the surveillance logs years after the activists were monitored when no criminal activity was alleged is unlawful.

Reports of the surveillance were shared with numerous federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, including the National Security Agency and Anne Arundel County's police department.

The groups monitored include the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which has many members from Takoma Park, and the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a peace group that has been vocal in opposing the Iraq war.

A well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max Obuszewski, 63, was singled out by the undercover agents and entered into a "Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area" database. His entry indicates a "Primary Crime" of "Terrorism-anti-government" and a "Secondary Crime" of "Terrorism-Anti-War Protesters," according to the documents.

Obuszewski said he was approached by a woman he now believes was a police agent at a rally outside the Supermax Prison in Baltimore to plead for clemency for death row inmate Vernon Evans in 2006.

"She came up and introduced herself and said she'd like to get more involved," he recalled. He invited her to attend the next meeting of his group, and she became a regular presence. At another rally outside the State House, Obuszewski said he noticed the woman, known as "Lucy," sitting on the steps with a laptop computer. "She said, 'I'm just getting some work done right now.' "

"Why would someone come into a meeting deceitfully and claim to be someone else?" Obuszewski asked.

"Lucy" and at least one other agent recorded minutes of every meeting they attended: dates for meetings of "activist" events planned by Amnesty International and the Human Rights Letter Writing Campaign; war protests in Takoma Park; and a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University to commemorate the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki during World War II.

"The ceremony at the gazebo lasted approximately 161/27 hours with poetry readings and songs," reads the entry for that event.

In another log, an activist from Takoma Park is noted as a "socialist" and an "anarchist."

"We nonviolence types are so dangerous, aren't we?" joked Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, which is fighting to repeal the death penalty.

The agents appear to have come to the same conclusion, the documents show. They expressed concern over possible tensions at antiwar and anti-death penalty rallies but noted repeatedly that they led to no violence and minimal disruptions.