NYPD infiltrated and monitored liberal political organizations across the country

Following recent news of the New York Police Department's counter-terrorism surveillance of Muslim communities new information reveals their monitoring stretching back to 2004 on liberal political activists and organizations around the country.

Undercover NYPD officers attended meetings of liberal political organizations and kept intelligence files on activists who planned protests, according to interviews and documents showing how police used counter-terrorism tactics to monitor even lawful activities.

The infiltration echoes the tactics the NYPD used in the run-up to New York's 2004 Republican National Convention, when police monitored church groups, anti-war organizations and environmental advocates nationwide.

That effort was revealed by The New York Times in 2007 and in an ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit over how the NYPD treated convention protesters.

Police said the pre-convention spying was necessary to prepare for the huge, raucous crowds that were headed to the city. Read More