Keep NYPD tricks cop-secret: Blas
Council bill would be terrorist boon
A City Council bill that would force the NYPD to reveal its antiterror tools and tactics is too liberal even for the city’s left-leaning mayor — who charged Sunday the act would create a “road map for the bad guys.”
“If we start to lay out everything we do to gather information to fight crime and fight terrorism, if we lay that out too publicly and in too much detail, unfortunately, it provides a road map for the bad guys. And I am not ever going to be comfortable with that,” Mayor de Blasio told John Catsimatidis on his 970-AM radio show.
“There are a lot of people gunning to hurt New York City, and we are not going to help them do it by giving them the kind of information that would only make our enemies stronger.”
The council’s Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act would require the NYPD to issue reports on what kinds of spy gad- gets it uses — like cellphone trackers and X-ray vans used to peer through walls — as well as how cops store and protect the private information they’ve collected.
Sixteen City Council members are currently sponsoring the bill, but it would need the backing of 34 to override a mayoral veto.
The NYPD’s counterterrorism chief, John Miller, also trashed the bill on Catsimatidis’ show, where he said the plan would be a “disaster” that puts cops’ lives in danger.
“It would allow criminals to learn way too much, way too easily,” Miller said.
“It’s one-stop shopping — one Web site where we would post everything we use and what the limitations on it were and what it was for.”
Council members Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan) and Vanessa Gibson (D-Bronx) introduced the controversial bill, but Miller claimed it was probably written by activists under the “nutty” be- lief that the NYPD is surveying innocent people.
“Nobody is going to call the ACLU down to the City Council or Congress because we have a terrorist attack,” Miller said.
“That is going to be me at that table with the police commissioner and the chief of detectives answering those questions.”
De Blasio agreed that cops are already sticking to the law when gathering intelligence.
“The NYPD uses tools to gain information,” the mayor said. “There are clear stipulations to make sure everything is done constitutionally and legally. There’s clear internal oversight.”
Police Commissioner James O’Neill also railed against the bill Friday, tweeting that the NYPD is “vehemently” opposed.
“It provides terrorists, criminals, & others with a road map on how to harm #USA,” he wrote.
MORE than any other place in the world, New York City remains in the cross hairs of violent terrorists.
And unfortunately, our adversaries have multiplied. What was once the domain of a few top-down groups operating from the safe havens of failed or hostile spaces has devolved into regional affiliates and local upstarts dispersed across the globe, as well as entrepreneurial lone wolves.
In addition to monitoring potential threats from abroad, we have to be concerned about threats originating at home, as the Chelsea bombing tragically reminded us. Recently, two covert Hezbollah agents were charged with undergoing weapons and explosives training and then conducting pre-operational surveillance of potential targets for terrorist attacks including locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and both airports.
Now, turning to the proposed City Council legislation, Intro 1482, which would require reporting and evaluation of surveillance technologies used by the NYPD.
While the NYPD is committed to transparency, we’re also mindful of maintaining the appropriate balance between reasonable transparency and still having the ef- fective tools and technologies needed to protect our city. This proposal would require us to advertise sensitive technologies that criminals and terrorists do not fully understand.
It would require the Police Department to list them, all in one place, describe how they work and the limitations we place on our use of them. It would make a one-stop-shopping guide for understanding these tools and how to thwart them. The NYPD absolutely opposes this proposal.
This proposal would also require the Police Department to provide an impact and use report, and disseminate it online, for each piece of equipment deemed “surveillance technology,” and provide a detailed description of the technology and its capabilities. It would, report by report, reveal the strengths and potential limitations of the NYPD’s counterterrorism defense operations to any terrorist or criminal organization doing its due diligence.
Terrorists and criminals constantly revise their tradecraft to reflect new intelligence. Leaked classified information, publicly available information and lessons learned from previous operations have provided valuable insight for terror- ist groups and criminal enterprises.
For example, the “Manchester Papers,” also called the “al Qaeda Manual,” which were discovered in 2000, provided tactical guidance for trained operatives based on knowledge of how law enforcement operates. More recently, ISIS and its supporters have published multiple tactical guides, some with information on specific devices as well as direction on how to evade camera technology.
The increased focus on small-scale, low-tech attacks by terrorist organizations — like knife attacks and car-ramming plots — is also a response to a greater understanding of how governments disrupt plots. Terrorist groups aren’t the only ones who could exploit this information. Hackers would, too. Municipal systems have been targeted in the recent past by hackers. This past January, 123 of Washington, DC’s 187 police cameras were infected with a malicious software that blocks access to critical data until a ransom is paid.
I provide these examples because one of the perhaps unintended consequences of the proposed legislation would be that with more knowledge of city systems, vulnerabilities can come to light and be exploited, creating an effective blueprint for those seeking to do harm.
Plus, the bill requires the impact and use statement to be posted online 90 days in advance of use and allow for a 45-day period for public comments on each report. This is an unprecedented hurdle placed on a singular agency. Often the technology sought in this legislation is needed imminently and this would impede the department’s ability to evolve critical technology based on changing circumstances.
Proponents of this bill raise concerns for local transparency and oversight. In considering the amount of public reporting conducted by this agency, the number of FOIL requests received and responded to and the fact that our Patrol Guide is available online with minor redactions, the NYPD is the most transparent municipal police department in the world.
In the final analysis, all this legislation does is provide an invaluable road map to terrorists, criminals and others on how to more effectively harm the public, commit crimes and hurt the interests of our city.