* Mick Dumke…

As Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced growing criticism last fall over the city’s handling of police shootings, Chicago Police Department officials laid plans to have undercover officers spy on protest groups, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show. […]

The undercover police operations last fall stemmed from plans announced by the Black Youth Project, the Workers Center and Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation — a coalition of churches and neighborhood groups known as SOUL — to protest the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, held Oct. 24-27 at McCormick Place.

Funders for Justice — a nationwide network of philanthropic groups that includes the Ford Foundation, one of the country’s biggest and best-known charitable organizations — posted an announcement of the “counter-conference” on its website. The Funders group had been formed to support discussions of police practices post-Ferguson.

* From the Progress Illinois recap…

A police department spokesman described the probe as “routine” and within the law, adding that it was “documented to ensure transparency with the public.”

“These protective actions — which happen in limited circumstances — are conducted to protect public safety and people’s First Amendment rights,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the newspaper.

Wait. They’re conducting these operations to “protect” First Amendment rights?

And I’m sure this had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the protesters were going to picket a police chiefs meeting.

Yeah. OK.

* From that meeting’s agenda…

Workshop titles include “Pathways to Violent Extremism: Understanding the Radicalization Process and How Best to Prevent Violence in Your Community” and “Use of Force By and Against the Police: Perspectives from the Local, State, and National Level.” […]

There will be a series of talks organized by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) on various themes, including something called “police legitimacy.” Among the CPD workshops is “The Chicago NATO Model: Bringing Order to Disorder While Ensuring First Amendment Rights

* ACLU…

The recent reports about the level and breadth of police monitoring of peaceful protest groups is unsettling and requires a response. Thousands of Chicago residents have joined protests in recent months demanding a more accountable, more transparent policing system in the City, and these protests have been conducted largely in a peaceful, considerate fashion. Rather than being dangerous, it has been inspiring to see so many young people take a leadership role in helping to plan and shape these activities.

The exercise of one’s protected First Amendment rights should not be a catalyst for a police investigation, whether overt or the covert insertion of undercover officers inside an organization. Such spying on peaceful protesters chills speech. The ACLU strongly opposes police officers attending meetings and collecting information on people organizing to exercise their First Amendment rights.

Given Chicago’s bleak history of using undercover officers to investigate and infiltrate peaceful groups simply for opposing policies emanating from City Hall, there must be strong, written guidelines for guarding against abuses in the use of police to investigate these sorts of activities. Washington D.C., for example, has a protective ordinance requiring “reasonable suspicion of a crime” before beginning the kind of investigations described here. Chicago used this standard for decades, but since the dissolution of a long-standing federal consent decree in June 2009, the standard of “a legitimate law enforcement purpose” has guided the CPD’s decisions for whether to spy on political movements. That standard is too low and nebulous, and inevitably leads to the kind of troubling spying reported here.

The ACLU of Illinois urges the Chicago City Council to hold hearings into these investigations as a precursor to considering written, formal guidelines, adopted by the Council that can help assure every person in Chicago that exercising free speech is not a predicate for a criminal investigation.

Instead of spying on churches and other groups, how about using those limited resources to spy on some dangerous criminals? I mean, the city’s so very safe, right?