At least one thing became clear last year during the trial of the so-called NATO Three: the Chicago Police Department spied on citizens exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.
We acquired the records from the department through a Freedom of Information Act request made last November. Specifically, we asked for copies of the paperwork required when police open what they call “First Amendment-related investigations,” which are “prompted by or based upon a person’s speech or other expression,” according to department rules. These investigations could include undercover officers, infiltration of protest groups, or electronic surveillance such as wiretaps or StingRay cell-phone tracking devices that can intercept calls, texts, and e-mails.
The names of the people being investigated are blacked out in the records we received, but it was authorized just two weeks before Chicago hosted a delegation from the International Olympic Committee, which ultimately decided which city would get the games in 2016. Daley’s Olympics proposal had stirred up opposition from a number of quarters, including police officers upset about delays in getting a new contract. When the IOC delegation arrived on April 3, 2009, roughly 1,000 off-duty officers formed a ring around City Hall chanting, “No contract, no Olympics!” Were the police actually spying on police? Only the police know.
Then, on October 14, a simultaneous undercover operation was launched into the small but vociferous Occupy Chicago movement that had camped out in the city’s financial district and in Grant Park. In their authorization forms, the police said they needed to “determine whether participants are planning activities that involve violence, property destruction or large scale civil disorder.”
For a while, Mo and Gloves infiltrated the movement against Mayor Emanuel’s closure of six mental health clinics. Mo was even arrested at a rally outside the shuttered Woodlawn clinic and hauled to a jail cell. There he was handcuffed to Matthew Ginsberg-Jaeckle, a leading mental health activist.
That was the end of the NATO Three case—but not the end of police spying.
