Orwellian Tactics in Maryland

My campaign headquarters in 2006 was in downtown Silver Spring, but all the young people wanted to work out of the Takoma Park field office at the Elektrik Maid, a funky community landmark, popular with punk rockers and slam poets, that sits across from the Takoma Metro Station. So it was startling for me to read that undercover Maryland State Police officers in the Homeland Security and Intelligence Division spent time on the beat-up sofas at the Electrik Maid in 2005 and 2006, spying on the Maryland Campaign to End the Death Penalty ["Police Spied on Activists In Md.," front page, July 18].

Like most Americans, I had assumed that the billions of dollars in federal homeland security funds channeled to the states went to monitor al-Qaeda sleeper cells planning terrorist attacks, or extremists who blow up health clinics and federal buildings. It never dawned on me that tax dollars collected during Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich's time in office could be paying for agents to infiltrate Quaker peace groups and anti-death penalty activists in Maryland.

One agent's report regarding a March 16, 2005, meeting was filed from "the Electrik Maid activist center in Takoma Park." After recording by name the presence of several of my constituents and "a representative from American University's chapter of Amnesty International," it notes: "The meeting was primarily concerned with getting people to put up fliers and getting information out to local businesses and churches about the upcoming events pertaining to the execution [of a death row inmate]. . . . The group discussed soliciting donations for signs, flyers and other administrative expenses."

Indeed, from the 46 pages of government documents released to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, it is clear that none of the undercover operatives found anything criminal going on, just the normal pursuits of citizen politics. Through all of the "silent witness vigils," "peaceful demonstrations," and "speeches by activists and politicians," the most dramatic moment comes when a heckler backing the death penalty gives "protesters the finger" at a rally in Baltimore. Most of the reports end with statements such as this from March 15, 2005: "No intelligence has been gathered at this point that there are any illegal or disruptive actions planned for any of the scheduled events either to bring attention to the case or the issue generally."

And yet the police surveillance continued for more than a year -- even with dozens of unsolved homicides and a tidal wave of financial fraud in our state. Why? What were the motivations behind these odd orders? Why were peace groups and death penalty opponents selected in the first place? And why was the name of at least one antiwar activist entered in a "Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area" database under the Orwellian headings of "Primary Crime: Terrorism-anti-government" and "Secondary Crime: Terrorism-Anti-War Protesters"? Has it become standard operating procedure across the country to describe peace activists as "terrorists"?

These questions require answers. The chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, Brian Frosh, is arranging for hearings in September. Spying on citizens chills our essential freedom to engage in political assembly and to petition the government for redress of grievances. The selective targeting of citizens for surveillance based on their political beliefs creates the sinister atmosphere of a banana republic where people seeking reform are treated like enemies of the state.

The sad thing about this episode is that the reports filed by the agents seem resigned and guilty, as if they knew their whole detail was wrong in the first place. Now, alas, the wheel of investigation turns to them, the inevitable result of political authorities injecting the paranoid style into government. Let us treat them fairly but reassert some basic constitutional values here. Citizens should never have to fear that their political activism will be treated like a homeland security threat.

-- Jamie Raskin

Silver Spring

The writer is a Maryland state senator representing Silver Spring and Takoma Park and a law professor at American University. He serves on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.