Results tagged “thenyclu”

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a two alarm fire at 80 Washington St in Lower Manhattan; an aircraft emergency at JFK this morning; two pedestrians struck on E. 53rd St.; and a "possible A.I. job" (whatever that is) in Woodhaven.
• The NYCLU objected yesterday to the number of cases the Civilian Complaint Review Board substantiated. The board, which investigates police misconduct, only substantiated 5% of the cases, but that's actually higher than that of Washington D.C. and San Francisco.
• A 64-year-old Gambino capo was given a 15 year sentence for orchestrating the murders of a couple that robbed his social club. No news on whether Dominick "Skinny Dom" Pizzonia, who has 6 grandchildren, lectured the judge on how they did things in his day.
• Mom and pop may have it a little easier if the City Council gets its way. They are examining the idea of giving tax breaks to small businesses hoping to "preserve neighborhood character," something that Mayor Bloomberg may not sign if it gets to him.
• Judith Zuk, the former president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, passed away over the weekend due to breast cancer. She served as president from 1990 until her retirement in 2005.
• Red Hook vendors and area eaters have lucked out. The Dept. of Parks and Recreation are letting the food vendors remain through October 21st when they traditionally end their season. New rules are expected to be laid out in the Fall that may prevent the vendors from returning next year.
• The hottest ticket in town? Not Oprah, not the US Open, but J.K. Rowling. She's coming to New York to read at Carnegie Hall for 1,600 lucky kids from NYC's public schools. She'll also be signing books and answering questions about the series to the lucky students. No tickets are available to the public.
• And coming to your computer - MTV is building "music world" a virtual Brooklyn and Lower East Side that replicates "hip" clubs. Bonus: no need to dress up while sitting at home late at night in front of the computer.

aboutmattlaw took this great photograph at the Ditmars Boulevard subway station stairs. It's a nod to Queens City Councilman Peter Vallone's proposed legislation to ban "non-sensual" peeping, with punishments like 90 days in jail and a $500 fine for first offense. Vallone said that his bill was prompted by some women's complaints that a "rather large pervert" was lurking under the Ditmars station's subway steps. Per the Queens Gazette, Vallone emphasizes, "These perverts use their eyes to invade the privacy of people's bodies, leaving many feeling violated. Yet, up until now, there has been a peephole loophole that gives anyone a license to gawk, leer and spy anywhere they please."

The NYCLU and ACLU are suing the Transportation Security Administration and Jet Blue over an incident where a passenger was forced to cover/change his shirt, which had Arabic lettering. Last year, Reid Jarrar, an American resident of Iraqi descent, was taking a JetBlue flight at JFK when a TSA official asked him to over his shirt, which read "We Will Not Be Silent" in both English and Arabic. The shirt's message is taken from the motto of an anti-Nazi resistance group, the White Rose.

Almost three years after the 2004 Republican National Convention, the tactics the NYPD used are still being debated in court. Per the NY Times, federal judge James C. Francis ruled yesterday that "hundreds of field intelligence reports by undercover investigators who infiltrated and compiled dossiers on protest groups" must be disclosed.

Last night, Picture New York held a First Amendment rally in Union Square to protest some wacky new rules the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcast. For instance, permits would be needed for a group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour as well as any group of five or more people who would be using a tripod for more than ten minutes. And did we mentioned the $1 million in liability insurance? While the rules are supposed to apply to professional filmmakers and photographers, many people are concerned that some amateur photographers and filmmakers would be targeted.

We've been hearing about a plan to increase security downtown by placing security cameras and license plate readers in Lower Manhattan, "ring of steel"-style for a while, but now the NY Times has word on when it'll happen. According to police officials, more than 100 cameras will be in place by the end of the year and if it's fully financed, over 3,000 private and public cameras will be up and running. From the Times:

Three thousand surveillance cameras would be installed below Canal Street by the end of 2008, about two-thirds of them owned by downtown companies. Some of those are already in place. Pivoting gates would be installed at critical intersections; they would swing out to block traffic or a suspect car at the push of a button.

Continue reading "You're On Lower Manhattan Security Initiative Camera!"

There are new details surrounding Sunday's 208 arrests at the Puerto Rican Day Parade: According to the NY Times, the police still claim that people were arrested for "specific illegal behavior," like blocking traffic, and not because they were wearing colors of the Latin Kings gang. However:

Criminal complaints filed against 10 defendants show that the police were concerned about the risk that those arrested would engage in violent or threatening behavior or cause some public inconvenience.

Continue reading "More Questions About Police Parade Arrests"

The NYPD decided not to appeal a judge's decision that the NYPD should declassify its surveillance documents from the 2004 RNC, so it has set up a special NYPD RNC Documents website with the documents. Of course, you have to scroll down to the very bottom for a zip file of the 600 pages of documents. And what's above the documents is the NYPD's rather thorough explanation/ defense justifying why it did such extensive surveillance of disparate groups and people, listing various terror incidents between 2001 and the convention as well as other incidents of protest. Here is Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's statement:

“I think a close examination of the documents is going to show that the New York City Police Department did an outstanding job in protecting the City during the Republican National Convention. People wanted to come here and shut down the City, to replicate what happened in Seattle, Montreal and Genoa. We simply didn't let that happen, and I think it'll just underscore the outstanding work of the men and women of the Department. In terms of gathering information, the vast majority of information that was gathered was open-source information. It was gathered from the Internet; these groups that were coming here were advertising what they were going to do — bragging about what they were going to do. It wasn't particularly difficult to get the vast majority of this information.”

ACT UP, Sierra Club, City Council members (Charles Barron, David Weprin, Bill Perkins), Sept. 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Johnny Cash Bloc, MSNBC, A31 Coalition, NYCLU, NOW, Planned Parenthood, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, Stuyvesant High School Students, Westboro Baptist Church, Indymedia, Democratic National Committee, Coalition of Fire and Police Unions, Grandmothers Against War, Falun Gong, Arab Muslim American Foundation, Time's Up, Billionaires For Bush, United for Peace and Justice, The Surveillance Camera Players, ACLU, Hip Hop Summit Action Network, The Federation of East Village Artists, Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Restaurant Opportunity Center of New York

A judge sided with the city and is allowing police files to remain secret. After the NY Times ran two stories about how the NYPD spied on groups at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention - and some of the groups did not seem to be intent on breaking the law - questions were raised about police conduct and whether the police broke the law (police cannot spy on organizations unless there is some indication of wrongdoing).

There's a big NY Times story about the NYPD's preparation before the 2004 Republican National Convention: The police started spying on protesters a year before the actual convention.

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

Continue reading "The NYPD Loved to Spy Before RNC 2004"

Last week, the NY Sun mentioned Cully Long in an article about websites documenting people's thoughts about the subway. Long uses his commute between 125th Street and 59th Street along the A in Manhattan to sketch commuters he sees and posts the ballpoint pen sketches on his site, a child of atom.

Federal Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. banned the police's ability to routinely videotape demonstrations yesterday. Haight found the NYPD violated Handschu v. Special Services Division, a 1971 decision that established "consent decree"; Haight wrote in his decision, "Solely politically based investigations are flatly prohibited by the guidelines. In other words, there must always be a legitimate law enforcement purpose - having a purpose of investigating political activity exclusively for its own sake is never allowed." In other words, just because it's a demonstration doesn't mean it has to be videotaped.

Today many will gather at Strawberry Fields in Central Park to hold vigil on the anniversary of the death of John Lennon, which took place 26 years ago today. The NYCLU has asked the city to lift the ban on music at Strawberry Fields for every day of the year, not just twice a year for Lennon vigils.

- And Mike Piazza returns to Shea Stadium tonight

The NYCLU is working with the FBI as the federal agency investigates whether the NYPD violated civil rights of protesters during the Republican National Convention in 2004. The FBI only confirmed they did send a letter to the NYCLU, but luckily the NYCLU has a PDF of the letter here. The FBI is looking for Dennis Kyne, whose arrest was thrown out after "videotape contradicted" the police officer's account. Interesting - and we're sure the Secret Service has a list of all the protesters just in case. Still, the NYCLU loves it: "Commissioner Kelly may have thought he could ignore complaints from the civil rights community and even the Civilian Complaint Review Board about Convention arrests, but we doubt he can ignore the FBI." And we heard about the Civilian Complaint Review Board's investigations last week.

The NYCLU is trying to stop the NYPD from videotaping political protests, saying that the surveillance would prevent people from demonstrating anonymously. On September 10, 2004, after the Republican National Convention, the police adopted Police Interim Order 47 which allowed them to tape political activity in order to fight terrorism; Handschu v. Special Services Division is the 1971 decision that established "consent decree" when the Black Panthers sued the police for surveiling their political activity. Of course, it was during the RNC where protestors noticed the police videotaping them, probably as they were being handcuffed and sent to the grungy holding cell. How much do you want to bet the police will use blogs and other independent media for photographic evidence?

The NYCLU is getting involved with the case of Michelle McCusker, who was fired from her Catholic school teaching job for being pregnant while unmarried. St. Rose of Lima School in Rockaway says that McCusker violated the "tenets of Catholic morality" (the principal wrote, "When a situation becomes evident that a teacher's life can not [sic] witness what the Catholic Church teaches, then termination of contract must occur"); the NYCLU is claiming gender discrimination, asking how the Catholic school would investigate a male teacher for impregnating a woman not his wife. McCusker is taking the "what else was I supposed to do route?" by saying:

"I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving could terminate me because I am unmarried and choose to have a baby...If I decided to abort the baby, the decision to fire me would not have been made because they would not have known."

The testimony for the NYCLU's lawsuit agains the NYPD for the subway bag searches has ended, and after reading the NY Times article, it seems that both sides pull out the stops for crazy quotes. NYPD did admit that the bag searches occur very rarely, but tried to scare Judge Richard M. Berman. Deputy Commissioner for counterterrorism Michael Sheehan said, "There is no doubt in my mind that the introduction of bag searches - even though it's random, even though it's not 100 percent - dramatically improves the security posture of this huge, sprawling subway system, which I believe is a top-tier target of Al Qaeda right now, even as we speak. " Gene Russianoff, whom we know and love for repping the Straphangers, used various subway rider polls as evidence, to show rider skepticism about the worthiness of bag checks. Judge Berman responded, "I have a high regard for democratic input, but do you think that's the way to design a counterterrorism program?" and that does bring up a good point: While the straphangers can point out flaws with subway surveillance, we're probably not that qualified. But this makes Gothamist wonder if possible roles for a Citzen Patrol Person (something we've seriously contemplated if only for a bright orange jacket) would be to work with the NYPD to design New Yorker-friendly martial law tactics. Closing arguments for the lawsuit are on December 2, and Judge Berman may issue a decision before the end of the year, possibly in time for the tourist influx known as New Year's. [Related: The NYCLU's updates on the trial]

Udi Ofer,
Director,
NYCLU's Bill of Rights Defense Campaign

The plaintiffs in the NYCLU's lawsuit against New York City spoke up about why they felt the subway bag checks violated their rights. The NYCLU has profiles of the plaintiffs, including why they filed the lawsuit. Norman Murphy told an officer he couldn't check his bag, and ended up walking to another subway station, while Andrew Schonebaum had his bag searched and a police officer said, "Aren't you happy to have your bag searched?" What's interesting is that the plaintiffs, besides all being men, combined have characteristics like "9/11 survivor," "son of police captain," "immigrant turned naturalized citizen," "Republican, and "commuter from NJ." Mayor Bloomberg criticized the lawsuit (of course, because he's getting sued!), saying, "It's a small price to pay to stay safe in this day and age." Yes, a day and age when NYC is run like a police state! Imagine how much Rudy Giuliani wishes he could be bearing down on us with strong-arm tactics.

The NY Times reported that protesters were illegally fingerprinted. Gothamist's posts from the week of the Republican National Convention.

The Times reports that United for Peace and Justice, though unhappy with the NYPD-proposed protest location of the West Side Highway, may accept the offer, as long as the NYPD will "help provide water, shuttle buses to subways and the more expensive sound system they say is necessary to reach protesters who may be miles from the stage." A Police Department official scoffed at the request, saying, "Whether it's a picnic in Central Park or a demonstration, they're expected to carry their own water - literally." This is something Gothamist has been wondering about - what exactly are the police and city supposed to provide during a protest? Portapotties? How much do these protest permits cost?