Equality Maryland -- A Threat to Public Safety?
Filed by: Nancy Polikoff
January 26, 2009 12:00 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/01/equality_maryland_--_a_threat_to_public.php (http://www.bilerico.com/2009/01/equality_maryland_--_a_threat_to_public.php)
Last year the news broke that Maryland Police were spying on anti-death penalty and anti-war groups. State Senator (and my colleague at American University Washington College of Law) Jamie Raskin vowed to introduce legislation to block the practice. But now it turns out that LGBT advocacy group Equality Maryland was also the target of surveillance. The organization was on a list of "political protest groups thought to be a threat to public safety." In other words, a terrorist watch list.
Apparently, the Equality Maryland executive director until the end of last year, Dan Furmansky, did not originally believe the group was on the list. Nonetheless, he authorized the Maryland ACLU to file a request for information from the state. The response showed, among other things, that someone used a fake name to find out details about a rally. And that Dan's photo was part of the police files.