Undercover Maryland State Police officers repeatedly spied on peace
activists and anti-death penalty groups in recent years and entered
the names of some in a law-enforcement database of people thought
to be terrorists or drug traffickers, newly released documents
show. The files, made public yesterday by the American Civil
Liberties Union of Maryland, depict a pattern of infiltration of
the activists' organizations in 2005 and 2006. The activists
contend that the authorities were trying to determine whether they
posed a security threat to the United States. But none of the 43
pages of summaries and computer logs - some with agents' names and
whole paragraphs blacked out - mention criminal or even potentially
criminal acts, the legal standard for initiating such surveillance.