From the NY Times: Questioning of Garner Protesters in New York Renews Concerns About Police Practices
Last December, as people arrested during protests related to the death of Eric Garner waited to be released from Police Headquarters in Manhattan, an officer removed a 28-year-old woman from a holding cell there.
The woman, Leighann Starkey, a doctoral student who lives in Harlem, said recently that she was escorted to a separate area where she was asked by two detectives how she knew about the demonstrations, what social media she used to keep track of them and whether she was part of a protest group. One detective, she said, asked whether she had ties to terrorists.
“When the police investigate political affiliations and political activities, that poses a serious threat to First Amendment rights,” the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Christopher Dunn, said. “The N.Y.P.D. should stop this immediately.”
Somehow I suspect the GOP won't be holding unending hearings on this like they did for the IRS investigation of some right-wing groups' tax-exempt status.
Martin R. Stolar, a member of the National Lawyers Guild who was among those who filed the Handschu case in Federal District Court in Manhattan in 1971, said that he believed the questioning of the Garner protesters violated the 1985 consent decree. Lawyers in the case were discussing how to proceed, Mr. Stolar said.
“The police are saying that if you’re going to protest, we’re going to ask about your associations, your reason for being at the protest, your plans for future protests,” he said. “All of that is an infringement of the right to be free from government interference in your political activities.”
The answer of course is to come out in greater numbers. What we need is a broad-based, multi-city protest against the unjustified use of force by police officers. If it's just activists, it doesn't make much of an impact. If we could get millions in the street, it would make politicians and AGs sit up and take notice.