Surveillance

RE MICHAEL Smerconish's op-ed "Again, Eavesdropping Makes Sense": There is real "debate" over electronic surveillance, FISA or NSA, because virtually everyone supports spying in some instances, with safeguards. What sparked a debate over surveillance was when the Bush administration authorized warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens without any FISA oversight or accountability. The idea that the government should never, in any circumstance, be allowed to track communications is insane.

Mayor Goode yesterday announced new guidelines requiring police for the first time to get permission from a civilian authority before conducting surveillance to gather intelligence on political organizations. Stefan Presser, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said no other city in the country required civilian review of police surveillance. The new policy was outlined by Goode in a letter to a coalition of protest groups that have sued the city over police surveillance during the Constitution bicentennial celebration.

Iranian diplomats may have carried out "hostile reconnaissance" of sites in New York as many as six times, a warning sign that the city might be targeted for terrorist attack, according to a police official. The incidents took place between 2002 and 2010 and involved videotaping or photographing landmarks, rail service and bridges, said Mitchell Silber, director of the city police department's intelligence analysis unit, in testimony before a U.S. House panel Wednesday. Hezbollah, a militant group allied with Iran that has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, also has ties to the New York region, he said.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales had a hard time peddling what he was selling to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. Maybe he had better luck at the closed Senate Intelligence Committee hearing yesterday. Then again, the Bush administration's approach to defending its warrantless eavesdropping has been to declare that it's legal because the President says it's legal, period. On Monday, Gonzales offered the judiciary panel chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) another unsatisfying explanation of why the administration did an end run around the law, the courts and Congress to initiate new forms of surveillance of overseas calls and e-mail involving American citizens.

WASHINGTON - A Muslim civil rights group that has worked closely with the Obama administration to build better relationships with American Muslims is suing the New York Police Department over its surveillance programs. Eight Muslims filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in New Jersey to force the NYPD to end its surveillance and other intelligence-gathering practices that have targeted Muslims since the 9/11 attacks. The lawsuit alleged that the NYPD's activities were unconstitutional because they focused on people's religion, national origin and race.

Government prosecutors yesterday defended hiding microphones in Common Pleas Court Judge Kenneth S. Harris' chambers and robing room and on his telephone, saying the surveillance was vital to the investigation that led to his indictment. "The government cautiously used a valid investigative tool . . . to investigate serious crimes involving a member of the state judiciary," prosecutors Gary S. Glazer and Pamela L. Donleavy said in court documents. "The essence of the government's case is that the defendant conducted his judicial office through a pattern of bribery and extortion.

Fearing possible terrorism at the Turin Olympics, Italian authorities are conducting surveillance on "numerous" people through telephone wiretaps and other intelligence operations, an Italian security official said yesterday. Luigi Rinella, the Italian police's liaison with the U.S. government, said those under surveillance included suspected Islamic militants, but he stressed that anti-globalization protesters and anarchists could also make trouble during the Feb. 10-26 Games.

The balding, 60-something man shown in a Christmas week security camera video is well-dressed in a dark suit and an open-collared shirt - but he appears to be lost or confused. The video - which Newark, Del., police say captures prominent defense expert John "Jack" Wheeler III two days before he was murdered and thrown into a trash dumpster - shows him wandering a couple of times up and down the office corridor of a downtown Wilmington parking garage. It shows Wheeler stopping at one point to speak with the office attendant; later he is seen in a second hallway, walking past a bank of ATM machines and onto a parking level.

LIKE thousands of Philadelphians, I mourn the death of Faheem Thomas-Childs. I too am the father of a 10-year old-son, and Faheem's horrific death is every parent's worst nightmare. As someone who thinks seriously about public policy, I've asked myself one question: What can we do to better protect our children going to and from school? My solution is simple. It's time for Philadelphia to look seriously at video surveillance of safe corridors for our children. No one is more sensitive to the civil-liberties implications of this suggestion than I. But the state of domestic terrorism that some communities face is considerable; I believe a critical mass exists to examine new solutions to protect our children.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration said Monday that it has no control over how the New York Police Department spends millions of dollars in White House grants that helped pay for NYPD programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance. In New York, the police commissioner said he wouldn't apologize. The White House has no opinion about how the grant money was spent, spokesman Jay Carney said. The Associated Press reported Monday that the White House money has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods and paid for computers that stored even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons, and social events.

YOUR STORY ABOUT the value of tax-exempt properties ("Officials eye tax abatements, nonprofits to ease property tax hit," April 17) includes some mistaken assumptions that should be corrected. The story claims that tax-exempt properties - properties owned by nonprofit institutions such as churches, hospitals, universities and others - "make up the majority" of the estimated $30.6 billion in tax-exempt land in Philadelphia. This is incorrect. In reality, half of this tax-exempt land - $15.3 billion - is property owned by the federal, state and local governments (including the public schools)

THE BOSTON Marathon bomber has been caught . . . on film. Law-enforcement authorities revealed Wednesday that they are "very close" - as a source told the Boston Globe - to a major break in the case of the worst domestic bombing attack since 9/11 after surveillance video captured footage of a suspect carrying and possibly dropping a black bag at the scene of the second of two explosions. A spokeswoman for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told the newspaper that "the best source of video" has proved to be a Lord & Taylor department store that faces out toward the sidewalk where one of the bombs - which killed three spectators at the iconic race on Monday and injured more than 170 others - went off. That recorded video was one of many pieces of film - footage taken not just from store or street surveillance cameras but also spectator videos and TV news cameras recording some of the 23,000 runners crossing the finish line - that seem to be helping agents heat up a trail that might have otherwise grown cold, some 48 hours after the stunning attack.

A surveillance video has given the family a sliver of hope, but two weeks after Sunil Tripathi disappeared, investigators say they are no closer to solving the mystery of what happened to him. "We don't have a direction, we don't have a possible area," said Detective Mark Sacco of the Providence, R.I., Police Department. "That is the strange part of the case - it starts and ends in his room. " The 2008 Radnor High School graduate was last seen March 16 by his housemates near Brown University.

In a rare move, the Delaware County District Attorney's Office has withdrawn charges against a defendant in the Memorial Day killing of a minister's son in Chester's north end. An FBI forensic analysis of surveillance photos indicated Tahmir Craig was not involved in the crime, the district attorney announced Wednesday. "I am a free man," Craig, 23, said as he headed to his lawyer's office after being released from jail. He said his 10 months behind bars awaiting trial were stressful and depressing, but added, "I'll be all right.

In a rare move, the Delaware County District Attorney's office has withdrawn charges against a defendant in the murder of a minister's son in Chester's north end last Memorial Day. An FBI forensic analysis of surveillance photos indicated that Tahmir Craig was not involved in the crime, the DA announced Wednesday. "I am a free man," said Tahmir Craig, 23, as he headed to his attorney's office after being released from jail. He said his 10 months in prison were stressful and depressing, but added, "I'll be alright.

The worst remaining excesses of U.S. antiterrorism tactics aren't likely to be reined in anytime soon. The State Department office charged with closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay has been shut down, while Gitmo itself remains very much in business. And a recent ruling by the Supreme Court effectively notified rights groups - and all American citizens, really - that it's none of their business whether the government is spying on their overseas phone calls and e-mail. The little-noticed announcement in January that the special envoy for closing the detention center at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, naval base was reassigned - and won't be replaced - merely acknowledged the obvious: Congressional restrictions tying President Obama's hands in various ways have made it all but impossible for the president to deliver on his campaign pledge to close the island prison.

Two teenage boys face criminal charges after their parents turned them in to police Friday for robbing a 9-year-old girl of $13. Philadelphia Police sent surveillance footage to news outlets Friday, seeking information on two suspects who robbed the third-grader in East Germantown. The two teens were caught on camera around 8:30 a.m. Friday, watching the girl make a purchase inside the Jaquez Mini Market at Wakefield and East Ashmead Streets. The 13- and 14-year-old boys went outside and waited for the girl, police said, before approaching her and grabbing her wallet.

GEROLD GIBSON, a Philadelphia police narcotics officer and the son-in-law of Gov. Corbett, was suspended Friday by Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey for 30 days with the intent to dismiss. Gibson was taken off the street Jan. 31, the same day he allegedly was caught on camera stealing $140 from a car he believed had been seized during a drug raid. Police sources previously told the Daily News that the money had been treated with a glow-in-the-dark chemical and hidden in the vehicle by investigators from the FBI and the Police Department.

Concerned about violations of privacy by drones, State Rep. Angel Cruz of Philadelphia is proposing that law-enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania get court approval for any unmanned aerial surveillance. The bill, which has nine cosponsors, including Republicans and Democrats, is likely to be introduced next week, said Cruz, a Democrat. The amendment to the state's criminal code, similar to one he first proposed a couple of years ago, would limit drone use to investigating serious crimes, where the penalty could be year or more in prison.