Blacklist

me,” she said Wednesday. “I believe this is an important struggle because it’s about truth, trust and transparency.”

Their attorney, Bruce Kramer, said the American Civil Liberties Union isn’t currently a party to the lawsuit, although the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center has talked with the organization about the document nicknamed the “blacklist,” which includes many local protesters and political activists. Kramer represented the ACLU in a lawsuit that resulted in a 1978 federal consent decree banning the MPD from engaging in political surveillance, the same order the lawsuit accuses the city of violating.

The lawsuit could eventually morph into a class-action, although the process to certify the class is lengthy, Kramer said.

“We’ve been contacted by I don’t know how many,” he said of interest in suing the city over the police escort issue.

The lawsuit claims the city “engaged in willful and wanton conduct violating the consent order by video recording participants at lawful protests, including specifically on February 21, 2017, in front of City Hall and by establishing a list which prevents and/or chills the Plaintiffs and others from exercising their rights to seek redress of grievances and protest.”

The complaint also calls out the city for violating the decree in not publishing a copy of the consent decree on its website and for using social media monitoring platform Geofeedia, which is based in Chicago and backed by the CIA.

The plaintiffs ask in the suit for a judge to order the city to explain its alleged violations of the consent decree and dissolve the “blacklist,” award plaintiff’s monetary damages and require the city to pay court costs and attorney fees.

Watkins and Garner declined to comment, and Franklin couldn’t be reached.

Meanwhile, earlier Wednesday, city spokeswoman Ursula Madden said MPD would “likely” not release information about the criteria officers used to place people on the list, citing state law allowing governments to keep secret security protocols like evacuation plans and building pass codes.

“(State law) says they do not have to disclose the information when it comes to securing buildings,” Madden said.

Madden declined in a statement Wednesday afternoon to comment on the lawsuit, which she said the city hadn’t reviewed yet.

Police Director Michael Rallings has said the people weren’t targeted because of their political views but has declined to elaborate on criteria used or if mistakes were made in assembling the roster. On Tuesday, Rallings denied political surveillance was used to assemble the information for the list, which included numerous political activists and Black Lives Matter protesters along with their race, gender, height, weight and corresponding photographs.

Strickland said Saturday, the day after the list was made public in response to an open records request, that he would meet with Rallings to review the policies related to the list. The meeting will take place this week, according to city spokeswoman Arlenia Cole.

In declining the request for the information, Madden cited a section of state law dealing with confidential records.

“Information and records that are directly related to the security of any government building shall be maintained as confidential and shall not be open to public inspection,” the section states.

Other sections of the law deal with information about alarm and security systems in government buildings, including “codes, passwords, wiring diagrams, plans and security procedures and protocols related to the security systems.”

The law also refers to confidentiality regarding security-related contingency and emergency response plans.