Chris Rossi/The Gazette
Former Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs addresses the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing Tuesday on the report on Maryland State Police surveillance activities.
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Lawmakers are crafting legislation similar to what other jurisdictions apply in response to a report that the Maryland State Police used undercover officers to spy on anti-war and anti-death penalty groups.
On Tuesday, a Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing on how state police infiltrated the activist groups revealed that 53 people were labeled as "terrorists" in the state police database.
The hearing is not the end of the matter, Sen. Brian E. Frosh, the committee's chairman, said Wednesday.
"Almost certainly we are going to have hearings during the [2009 legislative] session because we'll have legislation that addresses this issue," said Frosh (D-Dist. 16) of Bethesda.
Frosh said he plans to work with Sen. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Dist. 20) of Takoma Park on a bill that will use federal standards that allow police to engage in surveillance only when there is reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed or is imminent and when there are no less-intrusive methods available to gather information.
Such standards are used in other states and jurisdictions, including Montgomery County.
Former Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs, in a 93-page report that detailed state police's surveillance of the groups between March 2005 and May 2006, recommended that the state police adopt the standards by regulation, which would have the strength of being enshrined in the state code.
Regulations, Sachs told the panel Tuesday, "would be healthier. We think that the lesson learned at the state police would be more profound, more real, if it were initiated by the state police themselves."
Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who commissioned the Sachs report, said he is "open to discussion" of legislation.
Other lawmakers in the House and Senate could be considering legislation, said Frosh, who called the revelation that peaceful activists were labeled as terrorists "deplorable."
During Tuesday's hearing, Thomas E. "Tim" Hutchins, who was the Maryland State Police superintendent at the time of the surveillance, said police were justified in conducting surveillance of the activist groups, but that the agency was at fault for classifying individuals as terrorists.
In saying that the surveillance was only used as a public safety precaution, Hutchins said the state police did not violate First Amendment rights when gathering its information.
"With regards to this particular instance, you can call it whatever you want," he told the panel. "You can call it covert, but these were open public meetings. If you're going to require this reasonable suspicion, then you're not even going to be able to dispatch your patrol units to places where you think a crime may occur. There was need for it."
Hutchins declined to be interviewed during Sachs' investigation, preferring to testify before the Senate panel. Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who was governor at the time of the surveillance, also declined to be interviewed during the investigation. He did not testify Tuesday.
O'Malley appointed Sachs to conduct the review in July, two weeks after the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland released 46 pages of documents showing that state police officers spied on the groups.
Sachs' investigation found that state police violated federal regulations by transmitting its investigative findings to a database maintained by the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, and showed a "lack of judgment" by labeling peaceful groups as "terrorists" and "security threat groups."
The 53 people who were entered into the database will be allowed to review the files. The ACLU on Thursday asked O'Malley to reverse a state police plan to prevent those people from making copies or from reviewing the files with their lawyers present.
Last week, the ACLU of Maryland filed additional public information requests on behalf of 32 advocacy groups and more than 250 individuals associated with those groups who are concerned that their activities have also been monitored.
The groups are calling for a full investigation to uncover who ordered the surveillance, the length of time of the surveillance, what government officials were involved and what preventive measures will be taken to prohibit future unwarranted spying by state police.
Ashley M. Lewis of Capital News Service contributed to this report.
To read the Sachs report go to www.gazette.net/links/
