Judge Orders Police Department Files on Preconvention Surveillance Opened

[maddezmom]

Source: New York Times

By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: May 17, 2007
A federal magistrate judge yesterday released about 600 pages of secret documents relating to police preparations for the 2004 Republican National Convention, held in New York.

On May 4, the magistrate judge, James C. Francis IV, granted a request by the New York Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times to make the documents public, but also granted a 10-day stay to give the city time to file an appeal.

But in a letter to the judge dated Tuesday, a lawyer for the city, Peter G. Farrell, wrote that the city would not appeal, “in light of the documents’ prior disclosure and corresponding press coverage.”

The city had originally opposed the release of the documents because, it insisted, news organizations and legal groups would “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” and thus taint the potential pool of jurors who might later be asked to decide cases brought in connection with some of the nearly 2,000 arrests during the convention.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/nyregion/17convention.html?ref=politics

[Selatius]

1. One thing that truly enraged me about both conventions was "free speech zones"

For the Democratic Boston convention, the "free speech zone" was a fucking joke. It was hardly better than a concentration camp. They only thing they didn't have were barracks for protesters, but everything else from guards to barb wire fences were there.