Brushing aside assurances from the Maryland State Police that troopers will never again secretly monitor and collect information on peaceful protest groups, state lawmakers and Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration are moving ahead with a plan to outlaw such tactics and will push for legislative action at hearings today.
The discredited state police operation, revealed last summer after the American Civil Liberties Union sued for information on it, included troopers in the agency's homeland security division disguising their identities to e-mail organizers and attending meetings. Then, using a computer software program that was intended as a way to forward security-threat information to the federal government, the troopers categorized groups and more than 50 individuals as involved in "terrorism."
State police said the surveillance - which civil liberties groups have decried as spying - was born out of concern over possible violence at executions scheduled in early 2005. The monitoring continued for at least 14 months and expanded from death penalty opponents to war protesters to groups as varied as the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter and Equality Maryland, a gay rights organization.
FOR THE RECORD - An article in Tuesday's editions contained an incorrect description of Maj. Jack Simpson's role in the state police's spying operation. He made the initial request for information related to protests of executions, which led to the now-discredited surveillance operation.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
Soon after the operation came to light in July, Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, the state police superintendent, insisted such an operation would not happen again. Sheridan, who was not in charge of the agency during the surveillance, said he rewrote the policy to prevent similar tactics without his approval.
"Colonel Sheridan has said he believes his policy addresses those concerns," said Greg Shipley, a state police spokesman.
But Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat sponsoring one of the "anti-spying" measures, said police need "an explicit guide" laid out in state law.
"Having them write their own rules is not the solution," Raskin said. "That was the problem."
O'Malley, a Democrat, also has his own plan - one that the ACLU of Maryland said is too vague and does not go far enough to protect the public. His legislation is based on a recommendations of former Maryland Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs, who researched the program at the governor's request and concluded it was dismissive of civil rights.
Over the summer, the governor said he believed that the state police could make the needed changes on their own. As the legislative session began in January, he said he had decided upon a legal remedy to underline the importance of the issue.
