"Without it being codified in law, future administrations and future superintendents would be able to change internal policies," O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said.
ACLU leaders - and some Democratic lawmakers - say it is clear to them that the surveillance was driven by the Republican former governor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. On his radio show, Ehrlich has said he knew nothing of the state police program in question.
Del. Sheila E. Hixson, a Montgomery County Democrat and lead sponsor of the House anti-spying bill, blamed the Ehrlich administration. Troopers, she said, "don't just decide on their own to spy on a group because they have nothing else to do."
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.
But a review of the documents that state police have given to lawmakers portrays not a sophisticated surveillance operation, but rather a disorganized collection of blank pages, haphazard Internet research and perplexing descriptions.
Equality Maryland was categorized as "terrorism - pro-life" and "terrorism - anti-war." Amnesty International was suspected of the crime of "civil rights."
The DC Anti-War Network, which protested the Iraq war, was labeled a "white supremacist group" and also labeled with six kinds of "terrorism" - several of which would seem to contradict each other.
Sachs concluded that there was little value in the information gathered by state police and also determined that the collection did not amount to a concerted effort to chronicle the activities of political groups.
Sen. President Thomas V. Mike Miller also held harmless the former state police superintendent, who worked for Ehrlich.
Miller, a Democrat from Southern Maryland, called Col. Thomas E. "Tim" Hutchins, a Republican and a former Southern Maryland delegate, "a true patriot."
"If he had any role or position in this, I'm confident that he did it on advice of subordinates who convinced him it was in the interest of the state of Maryland," Miller said.
In the Sachs report, Maj. Jack Simpson, who headed the bureau that included homeland security, was identified as the most likely driving force. Edward T. Norris, who preceded Hutchins as state police superintendent, said Simpson was a "highly competent, smart guy," who was also ambitious.
Norris said intelligence gathering is "a specific art" but said the homeland security division that he started shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, "never would have been interested in the kinds of things they were looking at" under Hutchins.
online
Find more about the surveillance probe at baltimoresun.com/spying
