The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado (ACLU) announced a settlement today of its landmark lawsuit challenging the Denver Police Department’s practice of monitoring and recording the peaceful protest activities of Denver-area residents and keeping criminal intelligence files on the expressive activities of law-abiding advocacy groups, some of which were falsely labeled as “criminal extremist.”

“Denver has agreed to put an end to its decades-long practice of monitoring and keeping files on peaceful critics of government policy who have no connection to criminal activity,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “The end of this political spying enhances the professionalism of the police department and is a victory for the First Amendment and for the civil liberties of all people in Denver.

“This agreement is particularly significant at this time,” Silverstein continued, “when the White House falsely claims that Americans must sacrifice their civil liberties if they are going to be safe from terrorism. As this agreement demonstrates, effective law enforcement does not require giving up our Constitutional rights.”

“Denver has committed itself to a wholesale reform of the police department’s intelligence unit,” said Lino Lipinsky, of McKenna Long & Aldridge, who litigated the Spy Files case as an ACLU volunteer cooperating attorney. “Under this agreement, the Denver police will focus on catching criminals instead of tracking how individuals choose to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

The litigation over the Denver “Spy Files,” which sought changes in policies and practices rather than monetary damages, began shortly after the ACLU revealed the existence of the files in March, 2002.

The settlement agreement provides that the Denver Police Department (DPD) will, for the first time, adopt an official policy on intelligence-gathering that will be distributed to all officers. The new policy:

• Forbids the intelligence unit from collecting or maintaining information about how individuals exercise their First Amendment rights, unless that information is directly relevant to criminal activity and there are specific facts indicating that the individual is involved in that criminal activity.
• Applies to all forms of collecting intelligence information, including photographing and videotaping demonstrators, recording license plate numbers at peaceful rallies, intercepting email, and using undercover officers to infiltrate organizations that organize peaceful protests.
• Limits the intelligence unit to collecting information about serious criminal activity and expressly forbids collecting information on individuals who are suspected of nothing more than nonviolent civil disobedience that amounts only to a misdemeanor offense.
• Establishes limits and strict procedures governing the dissemination of information from the criminal intelligence files.
• Specifies internal safeguards, such as training, supervisory review, and thorough documentation of an audit trail.
• Requires quarterly and then annual audits by an independent agency whose reports will be submitted to the Public Safety Review Commission.

In addition, the settlement agreement also provides that Denver will:

• Purge all of the existing intelligence files that do not meet the rigorous criteria of the new policy.
• Permit individuals and organizations, for a 90-day period, another opportunity to obtain copies of their purged intelligence files. The DPD had stopped honoring such requests at the end of January.
• Provide letters from the Chief of Police to the subjects of all purged intelligence files, stating that the police have no information that justifies maintaining a criminal intelligence file.
• Provide notice of the purge to other law enforcement agencies that may have received information from Denver’s intelligence files.
• Submit to quarterly audits for the first year and subsequent annual audits, with the auditor initially selected, for the first two years, jointly by the Plaintiffs and the Mayor;
• Pay the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees and costs, in an amount to be determined by the Court.

The agreement calls for the lawsuit to be “administratively closed” for 12 months before being formally dismissed. During that period, the ACLU could move to re-open the lawsuit if the audits show that the DPD is violating the new intelligence policy.

Attorneys representing both sides of the lawsuit appeared in open court before Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer this morning to confirm the outlines of the agreement for the record. Before taking effect, however, the settlement must be submitted to United States District Court Judge Edward Nottingham for approval.

According to the ACLU, one unresolved issue is what will happen to the Spy Files after they are purged from the Denver Police Department’s files. “The Colorado Historical Society is interested in keeping the Spy Files as an historical record, with safeguards to protect individual privacy,” Silverstein said. “When the City of Chicago resolved a similar lawsuit in the 1980s, the Chicago Historical Society took custody of the famous Red Squad files. But Denver officials want to destroy the Spy Files after one year, thus preventing the public from ever finding out the full extent of the Denver Police Department’s political spying.”

Plaintiffs participating in the ACLU’s lawsuit are Sister Antonia Anthony, Vicki Nash, Stephen Nash, and three organizations: the American Friends Service Committee, Chiapas Coalition, and End The Politics of Cruelty.

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The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado (ACLU) today released documents revealing that the Colorado Springs Police Department has collected intelligence information on the free speech activities of peaceful critics of government policy and has sent its information directly to the Denver Police Department for inclusion, with other information about First Amendment activities in Colorado Springs, in the controversial Denver Police Spy Files.

"Earlier this year we learned that individuals cannot attend a peaceful rally in Denver without fear that their names will wind up in a criminal intelligence file," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. "Now it appears that peaceful protesters in Colorado Springs are subject to the same kind of illegitimate political surveillance. At a time when the Pentagon is proposing an Orwellian data-mining program to track the most intimate details of our lives, how many more Colorado cities are keeping files on peaceful protest activities that have absolutely no connection to criminal activity?"

Last March, the ACLU disclosed that Denver police were monitoring peaceful rallies, conducting surveillance of peaceful protest activities, and keeping criminal intelligence files on the free speech activities of law-abiding advocacy organizations, in some cases branding them falsely in the files as "criminal extremist." An ACLU class action lawsuit challenging the Denver police practices is pending in federal court in Denver.

The documents released today come from the Denver police file on Citizens for Peace in Space, a Colorado Springs-based organization that seeks to ban the use of nuclear weapons. The group obtained its file from Denver in the course of a review and purge of the Spy Files prompted by the ACLU's disclosure of Denver's political spying last March.

"These newly-released files strongly suggest that Colorado Springs police officers maintain the same kind of spy files as their counterparts in Denver," Silverstein said. "The documents clearly show that Denver and Colorado Springs coordinated their surveillance of peaceful protesters to track the American Friends Service Committee and the Colorado Coalition to Prevent Nuclear War as their members drove from Denver to join a peaceful and lawful demonstration outside Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs in 1999."

One document, written by Denver Intelligence officer James Wattles, reports that 80 persons attended the peaceful demonstration. It lists the plate numbers of 30 participants' cars, along with corresponding names and home addresses (although the Denver Police Department blacked out the individual names before releasing the document.) According to the report, the Colorado Springs Police Department supplied the license plate numbers to the Denver Intelligence Bureau.

The final portion of the report reflects surveillance conducted in Denver earlier the same day at the office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit. It states that four vehicles left for the demonstration and it notes that passengers included the AFSC director and a representative of Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Relying on the information supplied from Colorado Springs police, the report confirms that the same four vehicles arrived at the Colorado Springs demonstration.

"This document demonstrates that Colorado Springs police diligently recorded at least 30 license plate numbers and forwarded them directly to the Denver's Intelligence Unit," Silverstein said. "Someone evidently 'ran' the plate numbers through a law enforcement computer to obtain the names and home addresses that appear in this report. Neither police agency had any suspicion that criminal activity was involved. They had no valid law enforcement purpose whatsoever for this political surveillance."

"Colorado police agencies need to learn that a public gathering where individuals peacefully criticize government policy is not a crime scene; it is not criminal activity and it is not suspicious activity," Silverstein added. "On the contrary, it is activity that it protected by the United States and Colorado Constitutions."

Another document the ACLU disclosed shows that a Denver intelligence officer traveled to Colorado Springs to attend a conference at Colorado College about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. He then filed a report detailing the views expressed by the speakers and listing the peace activists he recognized in the audience.

In a third document, Denver intelligence officers report that AFSC and Citizens for Peace in Space sponsored a conference in Denver titled "Space, Nukes, and International Law." The report shows that Denver intelligence officers collected the license plate number of vehicles in the parking lot and then listed the corresponding names and home addresses in the Spy Files.

The ACLU released an additional Denver police document that reports that the Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission (PPJPC), also based in Colorado Springs, works closely with Citizens for Peace in Space and publishes a newsletter. The report lists PPJPC members and their addresses; lists the additional individuals responsible for editorial and distribution tasks connected with the newsletter; and lists 10 additional individuals that the report states are "associated" with the two peace groups.

"People should be free to attend an educational conference, work on a newsletter, join a peace group, or attend a peaceful rally without fear that their names will wind up in a police dossier," Silverstein said. "These documents make it clear that the Denver police have been building these Spy Files about First Amendment activities in Colorado Springs with the active assistance of the Colorado Springs Police Department. That raises serious questions whether the Colorado Springs police also maintain the same kind of political surveillance files on peaceful protesters that has prompted controversy, and a class action lawsuit, in Denver."

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The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado (ACLU) filed a class action lawsuit today challenging the Denver Police Department's practice of monitoring and recording the peaceful protest activities of Denver-area residents, keeping files on the expressive activities of law-abiding advocacy organizations, and sharing those files with third parties.

The suit also charges that Denver police have falsely labeled the ACLU's clients as "criminal extremist," including the American Friends Service Committee, an 85-year-old pacifist Quaker group that has won the Nobel Peace Prize for its advocacy of nonviolent social change; and Sister Antonia Anthony, a 73-year-old Franciscan nun whose opinions and lawful protest activity are documented in police files.

Additional plaintiffs are End the Politics of Cruelty, a Denver-based human rights organization that has focused on issues of police accountability; the Chiapas Coalition, which conducts education and advocacy activities supporting the struggle of indigenous persons in the Mexican state of Chiapas; and Stephen and Vicki Nash, whose participation in peaceful protest activities is also the subject of police files.

The ACLU first revealed the political spying at a news conference March 11, when it disclosed several pages from the Denver police "Spy Files" and called on Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb to put a stop to the practice, to make a full public accounting, and to permit individuals to review their files.

Two days later, Mayor Webb said that Denver police had gone too far, compiling "intelligence files" on 3200 individuals and 208 organizations, many of which posed no threat. He further stated that Denver police had strayed from the City's written policy, which prohibits keeping files on First Amendment activities unless the information is directly related to criminal activity and there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is involved in that criminal activity.

"Mayor Webb deserves credit for acknowledging that the Denver police Spy Files pose a threat to First Amendment rights," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. "But so far the City has not agreed that individuals will be able to review their files, and it has shown no interest in holding the police department accountable for this blatant and systematic violation of the clearly-written City policy."

Excerpts from the Spy Files attached to the ACLU lawsuit show that the Denver police have recorded the following kinds of information about specific individuals:

• membership in specific advocacy organizations labeled as "criminal extremist," such as the American Friends Service Committee, End The Politics of Cruelty, and the Chiapas Coalition;
• organizing and speaking at events sponsored by Amnesty International;
• attendance in 2000 at demonstrations sponsored by the Justice for Mena Committee, which sought to hold Denver police accountable for the killing of Ismael Mena in a botched no-knock raid in 1999;
• participation in protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington, D.C.;
• the purported opinion of plaintiff Sister Antonia that "global financial policies are responsible for the uprisings in Chiapas, Mexico";
• being "seen" at a demonstration in 2000 protesting the celebration of Columbus Day;
• license numbers and descriptions of vehicles used by individuals identified as participants in peaceful protest activities;
• home addresses and personal descriptions of individuals engaged in lawful expressive activity;
• the address of a private residence that an individual reportedly "frequents";

"There is no legitimate reason to keep these kinds of files on the peaceful expression of political views and opinions," said Lino Lipinsky, of McKenna & Cuneo, who filed the lawsuit as an ACLU cooperating attorney. "Denver residents should feel free to join a peaceful protest without fear that their names will wind up in police files."

"By monitoring peaceful expressive activity in this manner and by falsely branding law-abiding organizations as criminals and extremists," Silverstein added, "the police will make Denver residents afraid to express their views and afraid to participate fully in our democracy."

According to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs represent a class of as many as 3200 individuals and 208 organizations who have been targeted because of their peaceful expressive activities. At the present time, Lipinsky said, the lawsuit asks for injunctive relief rather than monetary damages. The ACLU seeks an enforceable order prohibiting the Denver police department from collecting, maintaining, and disseminating information on peaceful protest activities. It will also ask the court to order that the police records be expunged, after first permitting targets of the police surveillance to review their files. Finally, the ACLU will ask the court to order Denver to cooperate in tracking down whatever copies of the files have been sent to other law enforcement agencies and other third parties.

The lawsuit, American Friends Service Committee v. City and County of Denver, was filed in Denver District Court. 

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