News
Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 2 , 2005

The Denver police Spy Files have now been archived, indexed, and added to the Western History Collection at the Denver Public Library, the ACLU announced today.

Members of the public who want to know if their names appear in the Spy Files can now do so pursuant to procedures posted on the library’s web site at http://www.denver.lib.co.us/research/government/intelligence.html. Individuals can obtain copies of their Spy Files by submitting a written request to the library. The names of other persons will be redacted to protect their privacy. Representatives of organizations may also obtain the files pertaining to their organization. The process is expected to take 30 days.

The Spy Files controversy erupted in Denver in March, 2002, when the Colorado ACLU disclosed documents showing that the Denver Police Department’s Intelligence Unit had been systematically monitoring and recording the peaceful protest activities of Denver-area residents and keeping files on the expressive activities of law-abiding advocacy organizations, falsely labeling many of them as “criminal extremist.” Mayor Webb subsequently confirmed that the police maintained a computer database that, at the time, contained the names of 3200 individuals and over 200 organizations. After the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit and began depositions and discovery, the City acknowledged the existence of numerous additional hard-copy files that had not been entered into the Intelligence Unit’s database. These hard-copy Spy Files dated back several decades and contained close to 10,000 additional names.

The ACLU and the City settled the lawsuit in the closing days of the Webb administration in 2003, and the Denver Police Department agreed that it would no longer collect information about the First Amendment activities of individuals or organizations unless two conditions were met. First, the information must be directly relevant to serious criminal activity. Second, there must be reasonable suspicion that the individual or group is involved in that criminal activity.

After taking office in the summer of 2003, Mayor Hickenlooper pledged that the Spy Files would be preserved. A year later, the City announced that the Spy Files would be indexed and archived as part of the library’s Western History Collection.

On Wednesday, the library announced that its processing of the Spy Files collection is now completed, and the documents are available pursuant to the procedures posted on the library’s web site. Some documents are available immediately to all members of the public, while general public access to other portions will be restricted for 50 years to protect the privacy of persons whose names appear in the files.

Full information about the Spy Files controversy and the ACLU’s lawsuit is at http://www.aclu-co.org/spyfiles/chronology.htm.

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