Lawyers in a federal lawsuit that has governed how the New York Police Department investigates political and religious groups for more than 25 years asked a judge on Monday to let them collect information to see if the department had violated his orders in how they monitor Muslim communities.
In papers filed in federal court, the lawyers cited a series of recent news articles that detailed the use of undercover officers and informants to gather and maintain information about political activity among Muslims in circumstances in which there was no indication that crimes had occurred.
“These accounts, if true, suggest that the N.Y.P.D. is conducting surveillance and maintaining records of such surveillance in violation of the terms of the Modified Handschu Guidelines,” the lawyers wrote, referring to the court-ordered guidelines in effect as a result of the class-action lawsuit. The guidelines were first set forth in a 1985 consent decree and significantly loosened in 2003 after the Police Department asked that they be thoroughly revamped because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The lawyers on Monday also asked the judge in the case, Charles S. Haight Jr. of United States District Court in Manhattan, for an order requiring the department to preserve its records and databases.
The changes to the original 1985 Handschu Guidelines allowed law enforcement agencies to exchange information more freely and no longer required the police to file statements on its investigations of political and religious activity with the Handschu Authority, a panel made up of two senior police officials and a civilian. To ensure that constitutional rights are respected, the guidelines require the police to follow a 22-page set of F.B.I. guidelines issued in 2002.
Judge Haight said in 2003 that he would allow greater police powers because the nature of public peril had changed. His ruling led to a rewriting of the decree that established the original guidelines governing police investigations of political activity, which were known for the name of the original plaintiff inthe 1971 lawsuit, Barbara Handschu.
In their court papers, the lawyers said the news articles — two lengthy and detailed articles published by The Associated Press in August and September and two columns by the bloggerLeonard Levitt on his NYPD Confidential Web site — described a Police Department policy of focusing on Muslim communities in New York to identify “hot spots,” including mosques, social gathering places and student organizations based on college campuses.
One of the lawyers, Jethro M. Eisenstein, noted in the papers that the surveillance of political activities detailed in the articles might not violate the Modified Handschu Guidelines, which say that for “the purpose of protecting or preventing terrorist activities, N.Y.P.D. is authorized to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public, on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally.”
But he wrote that keeping records about “protected speech and behavior heard and seen during those operations is a violation of the Modified Handschu Guidelines,” as “no information obtained from such visits shall be retained unless it relates to potential unlawful or terrorist activity.”
Celeste Koeleveld, the executive assistant corporation counsel for public safety, who is representing the city, said through a spokesman that her office had just received the papers and was evaluating them.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, did not respond to a telephone call and an e-mail seeking comment.
The relaxed guidelines initially went into effect in early 2003 as internal department rules, leaving the class-action plaintiffs with what they said were no means to enforce them; previously, they could go to Judge Haight if they thought the department had violated the consent decree.
But in August of that year, just six months after the new guidelines went into effect, it was revealed that the department had been debriefing arrested Iraq war protesters about their political views and affiliations and recording their responses on a debriefing form, a violation of the new rules.
Judge Haight then incorporated the new guidelines into the consent decree, prompting a lengthy battle over whether the plaintiffs’ lawyers had the power to bring what they believed were violations of the guidelines to the attention of the court.
The department opposed any role for the court, but Judge Haight ruled that the plaintiffs had the power to complain about Police Department policies that they believed violated the modified guidelines. If they prove the policies violate the guidelines, the court has the power to order their end.