Melanie Lefkowitz and Leonard Levitt writing for Newsday on PD Wipes Out Protester Database:
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Thursday he had ordered an end to the recent department practice of questioning arrested anti-war protesters about prior political activity.
Kelly said at a news conference that he had ended the practice after he learned that "concerns" had been raised about it. Kelly did not identify who expressed the concerns, but at a later press conference, the New York Civil Liberties Union said it had sent a letter to him on Tuesday documenting the practice.
Donna Lieberman, the Civil Liberties Union executive director, said that after questioning the arrested demonstrators about their political ties, detectives filed the information on a form with a federal seal and entered it into a database.
Umm, I understand folks being arrested for civil disobedience and such, but there is no excuse for attempting to tie that with sedition or terrorism. Asking about prior political activity and storing the information in a database is plainly an attempt to do so.
Joel Kupferman, a lawyer representing the National Lawyers Guild, said that demonstrators have told him that while in custody at One Police Plaza they were asked the following questions by detectives:
"What is your view of Israel? What is your view of Palestine? What do you think of 9/11? And where were you during 9/11?"
I fail to see how the questions above are anything other than purely unrelated fishing expeditions considering the arrests were mostly for civil disobedience, blocking traffic, etc. Give me a break.
Link courtesy of Free-Market.net Freedom News.