Rounding up the unusual suspects

We're not talking waterboarding here, or even wiretapping - so far as we know, that is. Sachs was careful to point out that he did not conduct a formal investigation and thus did not have the power to issue subpoenas or take testimony under oath. Still, he uncovered some disturbing practices. The state police, for example, created investigative files on the peace- and anti-death penalty activists in a computerized database, listing them as "terrorism" suspects and classifying their groups as possible "security threats."

For a suspected terrorist, Max Obuszewski certainly hides himself and his activities in plain sight. You can often find the Baltimore activist, who was investigated by the unit, parked outside the WYPR station on North Charles Street, still protesting the firing eight months ago of talk-show host Marc Steiner. He is perennially publicizing his latest stance. He invites attention. He wants to be arrested.

Sachs' report notes that, as one city police official told him, "everybody knows Max," and everyone also knows his protests are "known not to pose threats to public safety." And yet, the state police felt it needed to infiltrate Obuszewski's gatherings, as well as those of various other similarly non-violent groups.

The activists are quoted in the report as expressing outrage, but in characteristically nonthreatening ways: Asked what they would have done had they known an undercover officer was attending one of their meetings, they said they would have asked the trooper to leave, or "there would have been a discussion and a vote about whether to continue the meeting at all."

No cries of "kill the pig," in other words, or "burn down the house."

What's troubling is the mind set of the unit that is revealed - is it a coincidence that anti-death penalty activists were spied upon, but not anti-abortion groups? Both, after all, are protesting measures that currently are the law of the land, so aren't both equally threatening to the state?

The report closes with a document written by one of the undercover agents about a 2005 ceremony held at a sculpture garden on the Hopkins campus to commemorate the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki during World War II. The agent duly noted that the 11/2-hour ceremony included poetry readings, singing and speechifying, all under the watchful eye of uniformed university police.

"Rally participants," the agent wrote, "were not observed breaking any laws."

Exactly.