In September 2004, the NYPD issued Interim Order 47, which created a system for police commanders to approve videotaping of protests, requiring merely that the taping have a “permissible operational objective.”
The federal judge had made a decision in an important wiretapping case. At least everybody thought so. But no one could be sure, because the ruling itself was secret.
The Bloomberg administration has made much of city government more transparent. But the mayor and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have kept their share of secrets too.
The fear of terrorists permeates places and conversations where it was once barely present, if at all.
A 2005 survey found that keystroke monitoring was used by 36 percent of companies queried. Fifty-five percent of companies perused employee e-mail messages and 76 percent tracked websites visited by employees.
Saying there’s a serious threat that local Muslim youth will become radicalized, the NYPD dispatched informers to root out those who’ve turned against us—and perhaps to help foment the very plots that law enforcement then disrupts.
Secret evidence, new anti-terrorism laws, and special restrictions on lawyers who handle terrorism cases are among the ways today’s criminal justice system differs from pre-9/11 days.
The FBI generated a list of 7,600 people whose profiles shared similarities with the hijackers, and conducted some 3,200 interviews had taken place. Fewer than 20 people were arrested as a result of the interviews, none on terrorism charges.
There’s no way of knowing if the subway bag searches are working; it’s supposed to be a deterrent, and a deterrent’s value is only evident when it fails.
Police are strikingly visible in post 9-11 New York City—in long lines of police cars, in body armor with machine guns in hand. Does all that firepower deliver more safety, or just more fear?
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