Costa Mesa Mayor Accuses Official of ‘Spying’ : Government: Councilman Ed Glasgow comes under fire for allegedly monitoring electronic messages exchanged by the city manager and the police chief.

Officials are angry about a city councilman’s monitoring of private computer messages exchanged by the city manager and the police chief, and the mayor on Wednesday accused Councilman Ed Glasgow of spying on city leaders.

“I’m absolutely outraged,” Mayor Peter F. Buffa said. “I haven’t seen the report, but if what I’ve read (in the newspaper) is true, we’ve got a City Council member who had access to the computer message system and in essence was spying on city employees.”

The council is scheduled to meet in closed session Monday to discuss the district attorney’s investigation of whether Glasgow and retired Costa Mesa Police Lt. John A. Regan improperly obtained personal communiques that City Manager Allan L. Roeder and Police Chief David L. Snowden sent to each other.

After a four-month investigation, the district attorney’s office concluded that there was not enough evidence to prosecute either man on misdemeanor charges of improper accessing of computers and the theft of computer-related information. A 255-page file on the matter was released by the district attorney this week.

According to the investigation, Regan and Glasgow monitored scores of Snowden’s and Roeder’s messages for six months. Among the communiques, which Regan printed out from city computers and gave to Glasgow, were remarks about city business, criticism of the City Council and jokes about women and homosexuals.

Roeder said the Police Department has made changes in its computer system to make it more difficult for people, no matter what their position, to gain access to the message files. He said the changes were made after the department learned of the tapping.

Roeder also said the city may look into adopting an ordinance that would make the tapping of computer lines illegal.

“We’re looking at additional steps so that those are the same as telephone conversations or mail,” Roeder said. “Our interpretation of the law is that they are, but the district attorney’s office concluded that they aren’t.”

Council members said Wednesday that they are concerned that Glasgow, a retired police captain, and Regan, who was the records commander for the Police Department, could have access to personal messages sent between employees on the city’s electronic mail system.

Council members said they plan to ask their colleague about his part in the alleged scheme at their session Monday night. The council has the power to censure Glasgow, repudiate his actions or conduct its own investigation.

The monitoring, Buffa said, could inhibit further computer communication between council members and city staff for fear that their conversations eventually could be made public.

“I’ve asked the city attorney for information on certain (legal) cases and it doesn’t make me very comfortable to know that this system and these messages can be intercepted,” the mayor said.

Neither Regan, who retired last December before the investigation began, nor his attorney, George W. Shaeffer Jr., could be reached for comment Wednesday. Glasgow refused to discuss the investigation or whether he would answer any questions at the executive session.

“I’m just not going to say anything about this affair,” Glasgow said. “I’m not contributing to my problems by talking to the press.”

Vice Mayor Mary Hornbuckle called for the closed session so all council members will receive equal access to the information contained in the district attorney’s report. Aside from a brief discussion with the city manager, the council has not received any official information about the investigation, she said.

“The one area that I would really like to look at is how we can prevent personal communications from becoming public information in the future,” Hornbuckle said. “It’s not unlike tapping someone’s phone wires or opening someone’s mail--that generally is regarded as private.”

The city uses two computerized communications systems, one in the Police Department and a separate system used by the council members and other city employees. Employees who have access to the electronic mail system have a code they must enter in their computers before gaining access to their messages.

City Atty. Thomas Kathe, who has not seen the district attorney’s report, said he did not know if Regan had legal access to the message files between Roeder and Snowden.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade, head of the district attorney’s special operations unit that looks into allegations of misconduct by public officials, said the investigation began at Snowden’s request.

Wade said there was not enough evidence to prosecute the men because Regan was “in the chain of computer monitoring” and might have had the authority to look at computer messages sent by city staff. “It’s real murky what his responsibilities were,” he said.

He also said that Regan claimed that he was monitoring Snowden’s messages to see if the chief was misusing his office and city vehicles, which might be a potential defense against any criminal charges.

“It is my judgment that there is insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing to sustain a successful prosecution of former Lt. Regan for illegal computer accessing or theft,” Wade wrote to Chief Snowden.