Michael Olesker, The Examiner
2008-07-23 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

We now have assurance from Gov. Martin O’Malley that the Maryland State Police have ceased spying on war protesters and death penalty opponents and those such as Sister Ardeth Platte, the dangerous 72-year-old nun. The governor says the police have gone back to conducting their own business, and not Big Brother’s.

This will give some comfort to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, which sued the state police last month to see documents about undercover police surveillance. As everybody knows, we live in dangerous times. The problem is, the state police seem to have had difficulty separating the dangerous from the merely political.

Were anti-war protesters who distributed fliers at the Towson Town Center mall really a danger to the country? Was Sister Ardeth a danger when she marched — in public, for everyone to see — outside National Security Agency offices at Fort Meade to protest the war in Iraq? And how about those in Baltimore marching against the death penalty. Were they being watched because they were considered a danger to the peace? Or was something else going on?

As The Washington Post reported, in roughly 300 hours of surveillance during a 14-month period in 2005-06, state police logs show no reports of illegal activity and no indication that activists were planning anything violent.

But, as Joseph Heller once noted, in “Catch-22,” the demonstrators were jeopardizing their constitutional rights “by daring to exercise them.”

All of these incidents — state police undercover agents using aliases to infiltrate private meetings, public demonstrations and e-mail lists — happened before O’Malley took office. But, in the aftermath of the ACLU lawsuit, the governor felt compelled to issue assurance that such activities have ceased, noting that police have an “obligation” to investigate threats to public safety but must make the distinction between real danger and “political views.”

In a telephone interview, Sen. Ben Cardin added his own concerns.

“An extremely serious issue,” he said. “This kind of activity has a chilling effect on people who want to express honest opposition to government policies.”

Cardin has more than a passing interest in this. Three years ago, he held a meeting on Iraq policy with a Baltimore peace group. The meeting later turned up on a state police database. Cardin has called for a “full accounting” of police surveillance activities — and now state lawmakers are planning formal hearings.

Well, good luck to that.

Those with long memories around here may remember a state Senate investigation of excessive spying by the Baltimore Police Department undercover unit known as the Inspectional Services Division. The probe came after a lengthy newspaper series in The News American detailing police surveillance of people who attended civic meetings, or went to a college debate, protested gas and electric rate increases, or peacefully walked a picket line.

Or held political office.

They weren’t doing anything illegal or dangerous. But the police commissioner of that era, Donald Pomerleau, didn’t like their political views. So he wanted information on such citizens, to be put to use if he needed it later.

When the state Senate finished its yearlong investigation, they issued a 157-page book backing up all details in the newspaper series, damning the police activities, and ripping Pomerleau.

And then nothing happened.

Pomerleau stayed on as commissioner. Every public official with muscle simply shrugged when they should have booted Pomerleau out of office.

The problem with civil liberties is that so many of us aren’t bothered when they’re violated — unless it’s our own being violated. We assume the government “must have a reason” — that they know something we don’t know. We don’t make the connection that a violation of any citizen’s rights is an expression of contempt for everyone’s.

The truth is, governments are comprised of human beings, who are given to the same misjudgments, and the same instinct for seizing political advantage, and for bullying, as anyone else. The difference is, they’ve been given power, and electronic toys — and, in nervous times, they’ve gotten a wink from higher-ups that such activities are OK.

We live in a nervous time now, in which terrorists fly airplanes into buildings and the war drags on. But distinctions have to be made. If we’re fighting to preserve freedom, we don’t compromise one set of freedoms to protect another.

We still believe in the right to peaceful protest in this country. It says so in all the old familiar places. And anybody — or any government agency — attempting to compromise that freedom becomes a greater danger to America than the people they’re spying on.