The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois is saying that reports of the Chicago Police Department surveilling “peaceful” protest groups is “unsettling.”
According to a Chicago Sun-Times report, Chicago PD have been “monitoring” protest groups since 2014, right after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Last October, CPD’s “top lawyer,” Ralph Price, reportedly signed off on a plan for CPD to have undercover police “monitor” protest groups, including Black Lives Matter.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported:
A month later — after the court-ordered release of police dashcam video showing a white Chicago cop, Officer Jason Van Dyke, shooting and killing a black teenager, Laquan McDonald — a top [Rahm] Emanuel aide went to the command center of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications to keep tabs on protests organized by the Black Youth Project 100, one of the groups spied on by the police.
Johnae Strong, one of the leaders of the Black Youth Project 100, said, “There’s just a history of knowing we are organizing in a very hostile environment. The Chicago Police Department does exactly what it wants to do and finds ways to make it bureaucratically valid.”
Kind of like all of those “peaceful” protests that block streets and highways so that regular, law-abiding people can't get where they need to go? That’s what you meant by doing exactly what you want to do, right? Try sitting in Chicago rush hour traffic without having to deal with protesters. Now that's “unsettling.”
CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi stated, “These protective actions — which happen in limited circumstances — are conducted to protect public safety and people’s First Amendment rights.”
Guglielmi should know that the protesters love when you fight for their First Amendment rights, but only their rights. If someone has an opposing view, it’s “hate speech.”
H/T WGN