Senator Jamie Raskin

State Police allow activists to examine records

By Christian Kloc

Special to The Sentinel

Maryland State Police sent letters to local activists last week, inviting them to review information gathered on them during a surveillance operation before purging their names from a state and federal terrorist watch list.

But to the dismay of activist groups and the letter recipients, state police will not release copies of their files or permit legal representation during their review.

Days after state police admitted entering the names and personal information of 53 activist group members to the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database during a 14-month surveillance operation in 2005 and 2006, spied-upon groups met to discuss the issue in Takoma Park Presbyterian Church Saturday afternoon.

"[The state police] should apologize to me," said Pat Elder, a Bethesda resident and member of the D.C. Anti-War Newtork, who was outraged by the letter Maryland State Police sent him last week.

At an Oct. 7 meeting of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in Annapolis, Col. Thomas E. "Tim" Hutchins, who presided over the surveillance operations, took responsibility for the mistake but said the actions of state police were not spying, The Washington Times reported.

"I'm here to stand up for [my constituents]," said state Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Dist. 20), emphasizing that activist groups do not operate on the basis of secrecy or conspiracy and thus should not be subject to spying.

Raskin will introduce legislation, perhaps as early as January 2009, to protect against surveillance without reasonable, well-articulated suspicion.

"If you don't write the changes in state law, then history will repeat itself," he said.

Raskin also questioned the focus of state anti-terrorism efforts.

"Who's out there following the real terrorists," Raskin said.

"This is very scary stuff," Baltimore Pledge of Resistance member Maria Allwine said, adding that the discovery of names on the terror watch list had a "chilling effect personally and within our group."

Allwine said state police spied on groups who disagreed with government's policies and decisions. She called the groups' efforts "the most American of all activities."

"They came for the Arabs, they came for the Muslims and now they're coming for us," said sportswriter and death penalty opponent David Zirin, who connected spying operations in the United States and abroad.

Max Obuszewski, the first person to be identified on the watch list earlier this year, supported legislation to prevent future spying and recommended a full investigation to determine who is responsible for its authorization.

"We have to have a real investigation to uncover what's going on," Obuszewski said.

David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union working on the anti-spying campaign, said letter recipients deserve access to attorneys when they review their state files.

"Everyone who gets one of these letters should call me," he said.