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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?

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 1:10 pm

Comments

Rahm’s Red Squads.

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 1:16 pm
>>it was “documented to ensure transparency with the public.”

Comment by Out Here In The Middle Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 1:50 pm
The Chicago NATO model? What’s that, just beating college kids with batons?

Comment by Hullabaloo Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 2:11 pm
Rahm could probably have taught Richard Nixon a few things.

Comment by 1970sGuy Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 2:26 pm
Gee. Sounds like nothing’s changed in 40 years. Used to run with a group that took secret pride in thinking we were subject to police/fed infiltration. And “the Man” and ACLU said the same things too.

Now if they were planting evidence, framing people, and murdering sleeping activists in their beds, I might be newly outraged. Sorry.

Comment by walker Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 2:27 pm
=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?=

Apparently the views held at the local and national levels are that we have such an excess of law enforcement and security resources, there’s no downside to spying on law-abiding citizens.

Comment by Qui Tam Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 2:49 pm
You have no idea. When this city goes up, thank the likes of the ACLU. “You can’t handle the truth”.

Comment by Been There Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 3:21 pm
===When this city goes up, thank the likes of the ACLU===

You sound like the governor talking about Madigan.

The cops have a job to do, and some aren’t doing it. Stop whining and get back to work.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 3:22 pm
===“You can’t handle the truth”===

Um, the fictional character who said that was actually the bad guy.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 3:25 pm
The Chicago NATO model was all about spies. They had bodies in every major meeting those protest groups had and knew every planned step they took before it happened. I friendly with a lot of younger downtown cops and several of them were wearing Guy Fawkes masks and posing as protesters.

Comment by Horse w/ No Name Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 3:28 pm
Two points:

First, proper or not, all the effort was a waste. The protests were annoying but never violent. They went to effort to find out that demonstrators want to inconvenience a few people.

Second, reading Johnae Strong’s name as leader is somewhat annoying. Strong was (and may be still be technically) a teacher at a CPS school. About a month ago, she was removed from her class after a year’s worth of parent complaints about the lack of progress by her students. While other grade level classes the school at which she taught were getting homework and working hard, her class alone received no homework and made extremely little progress this year. Too bad Strong didn’t devote any real effort to her day job.

Comment by Gooner Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 3:32 pm
Rahm’s “Best and Brightest” seem like neither.
And they all survive, except for McCarthy. Clean house already.

Comment by James the Intolerant Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 3:36 pm
This type of undercover work was a great success in the 1970s and why we remember J Edgar Hoover so fondly. Yes, we have to divert resources away from preventing violence and catching real criminals, but it’s a small price to pay to get the goods on these subversives, isn’t it?

Comment by Buster Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 4:10 pm
Buster, you almost had me for a second.

lol

Good one.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 4:15 pm
Thanks, Rich!

Comment by Buster Monday, Apr 11, 16 @ 4:19 pm