by nomo » Fri Feb 03, 2006 3:34 pm
<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Surveillance Prompts a Suit: Police v. Police</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/nyregion/03police.html">www.nytimes.com/2006/02/0...olice.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/02/03/nyregion/03police583.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Police officers photographed and videotaped off-duty officers who were demonstrating in August 2004 outside Gracie Mansion.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.<br><br>Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984."<br><br>"That's Big Brother watching you," the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.<br><br>Mr. Liddy's complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
