NYC Asks Court, “Please Don’t Make Us Look Bad”
The New York Times has been following the surveillance and undercover infiltration tactics employed by the police leading up to the 2004 GOP Convention here. In an article headlined City Asks Court Not to Unseal Police Spy Files, we learn:
Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” hurting the city’s ability to defend itself in lawsuits over mass arrests.
In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be “misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public.
I’m not a lawyer, but I have a strong feeling that this is not a very strong legal argument.
I am a fan of Bloomberg’s work as mayor for the most part, but the City’s behavior around that Convention has lingered in my mind as a black mark on his administration. It looks like we may yet find out how black the mark is.
