Michael Greenberg: New York - The Police and the Protesters

After the attacks on the World Trade Center, the legal safeguards that protected certain civil rights were deemed by many to be one of the main causes of America’s vulnerability. Circumstances had changed and so, it was argued, should the rules. In January 2002, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly hired David Cohen, the CIA’s former head of covert operations—the agency’s so-called “top spy”—to rebuild Intel. One of Cohen’s first moves was to challenge the Handschu Decree in court, arguing that it impeded the NYPD’s counterterrorism efforts. “To wait for an indication of crime before investigating is to wait for too long,” Cohen told the court.9 In February 2003, Charles S. Haight Jr., the district judge who presided over Handschu, agreed. The Handschu authority was abolished and the standard to initiate investigations went from the requirement for specific evidence of criminal activity to “information which indicated the possibility of criminal activity” (italics mine)—a much vaguer guideline that effectively removed prior restrictions.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.