Denver PL to Archive Surveillance Files by City Police
Twenty-one boxes of photos, flyers, membership rosters, and investigators’ notes on some 10,000 alleged extremists and 1,000 peaceful protest groups gathered since 1953 by the Denver Intelligence Bureau, a division of the police department, will be archived in a nonpublic area of the Denver Public Library for selective review.
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper apologized June 17 for the city’s surveillance activities, adding that police need to keep intelligence files on criminals and not protest groups, the Associated Press reported June 17. The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado had asked for the files to be preserved after settling a lawsuit challenging the police activities as unlawful.
“There’s a very legitimate interest for historical purposes for preserving these records, in what we hope is a now closed episode in this city’s history,” ACLU-Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein said. “The plan sets up a mechanism that will permit individuals to find out if they’re in those files and read what the police department wrote about them.”
City Librarian Rick Ashton said at least two archivists will catalog, index, and organize the files to make them searchable by name. Such public records as newspaper clippings, flyers, and posters will be made available as soon as they are processed, but police files containing personal information can only be viewed by those named in the documents.
As part of the settlement, Denver police no longer gather intelligence on groups or individuals based solely on their political, social, or religious views.
Posted June 18, 2004.
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