By Camille T. Taiara

On the evening of Sept. 2, as dusk fell over the New York skyline and delegates awaited President George W. Bush's appearance at the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden, a friend and I joined 200 activists at a small park across the street from the New York courthouse. Like the rest, we were anxiously awaiting the release of one of our crew. He'd been on the sidewalk bearing witness to a particularly rough arrest of a young woman a few blocks away from Madison Square Garden two nights earlier, during the now-infamous day of direct action on Aug. 31. A few of New York's finest had zeroed in on him too, viciously slamming him to the concrete and then carting him off into a police van.

We hadn't heard from him since. But we'd heard the stories: Long delays in access to a phone and an attorney. Deplorable, toxic conditions at Pier 57, where most of those arrested were held in chain-link cages for many hours before being transferred to jail.

But I was about to be made privy to a another story that was even more disturbing: undercover officers had not only been surveilling anti-RNC activists. They'd also launched a harrowing campaign of harassment and intimidation against them.

Kevin D'Amato and his eight-person affinity group were among the targets. A lanky, sweet-mannered, 27-year-old activist who'd flown in from Los Angeles, D'Amato had rolled with us a few times over the past days of anti-RNC actions. I'd come to trust him. He and several others in his affinity group – all New Yorkers – had been providing information and resources on RNC protest-related activities and conducting nonviolent civil disobedience trainings. "None of our tactics are violent," he told me, but "many of us have been very visible in the media."

They'd suspected they were being trailed, and one had gone home the night before to find two plainclothes officers in the lobby of his building. The super had told him they'd been there earlier, asking questions about him. So he spent the night at a friend's house and returned home with others in his affinity group the next day.

There were undercovers – that is, people who were acting like undercover cops – staked outside. Only this time, the spies walked alongside the activists, making it known that they knew all their names and details of their daily activities. "They walked with us for 10 blocks," until the group found some legal observers with the National Lawyers Guild to escort them home, D'Amato recounted.

"It was blatant intimidation," he said, and I could see the worry in his eyes. "It's really jarring. It gets in your head."

A couple of hours later, as we treated the friend we'd been waiting for – released without charges after 48 hours in the pen – to a much-needed beer at Baxter's Pub around the corner, we got a call from D'Amato. He and five others were in Midtown, walking north on Broadway near 26th Street, and they were being followed again – this time, by up to half a dozen people they suspected were undercover police. It had been going on for almost two hours. No legal observers were available. It was getting pretty hairy.

My companion and I hopped on the subway. When we got there, the group pointed out the surveillance crew, and I approached two men standing around in a doorway a few yards away. I showed them my press pass, said I understood they'd been following the group around, and asked if they were undercover police officers. They denied it.

"Then why have you been following them around for two hours?" I asked.

"We've just been walking around Manhattan," one told me.

Everywhere we went, every turn we took, they were there with us, walking among us, getting in our faces. One, an African American wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, kept menacingly approaching individuals in our group, yelling that we were undercover police officers harassing a "brother." Another – a white man in a gray T-shirt – acted as if he were a bit crazy too. He harangued us, dropping hints to let us know he knew personal details about the group. He asked, for example, about Los Angeles, where D'Amato and my friend live. People in the street stared.

We knew what they were doing. They were trying to instigate a fight – an excuse to arrest us. And they were sending us a blatant message: we're watching you; we're going to make life hell for you.

We finally broke up into three groups about 45 minutes into the ordeal. D'Amato, my friend, and I managed to ditch them: we hopped in a cab, and two or three others grabbed a second taxi. Two female members of the surveillance squad followed in a third cab, but a few minutes later our friends behind us turned in a different direction, and the undercovers followed.

Others have since told me they know of activists on both the East and West Coasts who've had similar run-ins.

The cops wouldn't confirm that they had undercovers working – but they didn't deny it, either. "If the New York City Police Department were aware of someone planning to commit a crime in New York City, we would investigate those persons" is all deputy chief Michael Collins of the Public Information Office would tell me about the incident when I called the next day. "I know of no member of the New York Police Department harassing anyone," he insisted." He said if we had evidence to the contrary, we could send a letter.

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