Maryland Cops Spied on Peaceniks

Groups opposing the death penalty and the war in Iraq were infiltrated and spied on by undercover Maryland State Police officers, according to police logs obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. Some activists were placed on terrorist and drug trafficking databases with no evidence they were involved in any illegal activity, reports the Baltimore Sun. 

"Everything noted in these logs is a lawful, First Amendment activity," said an ACLU attorney, who called the surveillance "stupefying." For "undercover police to spend hundreds of hours entering information about lawful political protest activities into a criminal database is an unconscionable waste of taxpayer dollars." (More Maryland State Police stories.)