Old New York Police Surveillance Is Found, Forcing Big Brother Out of Hiding (NY Times)
JUNE 16, 2016
From the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, police surveillance of political organizations in New York was extensive enough to require more than half a million index cards, simply to catalog and cross-reference the many dossiers. But over the ensuing decades, the dossiers themselves were presumed missing or lost. Police Department lawyers said they had no idea where the files had gone.
Now, a significant portion of the missing files have been discovered during what the city said on Thursday was a routine inventory of a Queens warehouse, where archivists found 520 brown boxes of decades-old files, believed to be the largest trove of New York Police Department surveillance records from the era.
Its the whole mother lode, said Gideon Oliver, a civil rights lawyer who two years ago filed a lawsuit on behalf of a historian seeking records about a group that was a target of surveillance.
The boxes, according to a written index, contain extensive files about the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam and the Young Lords, as well as public demonstrations and civil unrest. Files on individuals are also among the documents; at least 15 boxes primarily contain photographs, Mr. Oliver said.
The citys Records Department, in a statement, said it was working to develop rules regarding public access to the documents, though no timetable or process has been set.
cont'd...
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/nyregion/old-new-york-police-surveillance-is-found-forcing-big-brother-out-of-hiding.html
marble falls
(57,112 posts)Hoppy
(3,595 posts)Settle down, Martha, it's sarcasm.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)If you did anything, you made the list.
malthaussen
(17,204 posts)From the standpoint of someone who absolutely drools over primary sources, I would love to get my hands on some of these files. There should be some interesting books coming out of them by-and-by.
-- Mal
TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts)Warpy
(111,277 posts)and just wait for the next big storm.
Hell, I'm shocked they didn't already do this.
I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't a similar trove buried in some store room in Boston.
Yeah, the phones were bugged. You could tell it back then by the clicks on the line.
hueymahl
(2,498 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)This kind of old hardcopy is harder to accidentally delete, but a fire is still good.