Eased Curbs on Police Unit Stir Concern

In moving quickly to approve the relaxing of restrictions that police say hamper them from going after terrorists, the Los Angeles Police Commission has reignited a civil liberties debate that dates back a decade to a time when the police were known for overstepping their bounds.

Upon learning of the panel’s decision to relax certain restrictions on the department’s Anti-Terrorist Division, Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, dashed out a letter to the commission.

“We believe like all others that law enforcement agencies should take all reasonable steps to forestall terrorist attacks,” Ripston wrote. “However, we do not believe it is necessary to abandon fundamental democratic principles to accomplish this.”

Former Mayor Tom Bradley also injected a word of caution.

“We instituted a number of reforms to protect the rights and liberties of citizens,” he said. “I think they have to be very careful to not threaten those rights and liberties that we fought so hard to protect.”

The debate was fueled by the commission’s decision Thursday to give the Anti-Terrorist Division more authority to investigate suspected terrorists in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. The commission, whose actions must be approved by the City Council, voted to expand the use of undercover operatives, electronic surveillance and civilian informants against suspected terrorists.

The commission did not approve a set of proposed changes that would have allowed the department to gather information about individuals who are members of groups advocating criminal conduct, whether or not there is evidence that the individuals are breaking the law or plan to do so. Those and other changes were submitted to city lawyers for review.

Ripston cautioned the city against dismantling the safeguards that were put into place in the wake of a spying scandal a decade ago.

“In the past, there were wholesale abuses by the Police Department,” she said.

Ripston said the Public Disorder Intelligence Division, predecessor of the Anti-Terrorist Division, had an informant in the ACLU office.

The Police Department wants to rewrite the guidelines it was forced to accept to settle a lawsuit brought against the city in the spying case by the ACLU on behalf of religious, civil rights, environmental and protest groups and more than 100 people who contended that they were subjected to needless scrutiny by the Public Disorder Intelligence Division.

Commissioners were unprepared to give the department everything it wanted Thursday, but they expressed sentiment that Los Angeles had gone too far in restricting some of its intelligence-gathering operations in the 1980s.

Bradley said he could not imagine police commissioners allowing a return to the practices of 10 years ago--even in the wake of the Oklahoma tragedy.

“The Police Department had collected a great deal of information inappropriately,” Bradley said. “They had information on people who had done little more than attend a meeting.”

City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said he too was suspicious of the proposed changes. The Public Disorder Intelligence Division targeted the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when he was executive director of the civil rights organization, Ridley-Thomas said.

“It seems as though there is an attempt to seize the moment, not only in the interest of public safety, but to do what they wanted to do all along,” the councilman said.

As vice chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, Ridley-Thomas said he plans to call hearings on the proposed changes.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who as a City Council member helped iron out the current guidelines, said the Police Commission should maintain its authority to oversee the actions of the Anti-Terrorist Division.

Opinions were divided among those in a lunchtime crowd not far from City Hall. Some said the police needed a stronger hand to combat terrorism, while others questioned whether liberties would be trampled in the process.

Christopher Perez, a Bankruptcy Court researcher, said authorities need more power.

“We have lunatics out there who have to be identified,” he said.

City Hall employees Pat Wallace and Bruce Aoki agreed that it is easy to get caught up in the emotions surrounding the bombing and relax guarantees on civil liberties.

“Immediately you want to say, ‘Do what you have to do,’ but that wears off,” Wallace said.

“In another six months you feel like maybe (police intelligence units) have access to too much information,” Aoki said.