New York Police pushing air monitor bill

BY ANDREW STRICKLER | andrew.strickler@newsday.com

8:34 PM EDT, April 30, 2008

The New York Police Department is pushing for new powers to regulate devices that detect radiological, chemical and biological attacks -- a move strongly opposed by many environmental organizations and community activists who believe the proposed law encroaches on civil liberties.

The bill, now being debated in the city council's Committee on Public Safety, would give the police authority to decide where and how commercially available detectors could be used and to issue permits. Users would be required to notify the police of an alert.

If passed, the legislation would make New York the first U.S. city to regulate such detectors, city officials said.

Joel Shufro of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, which represents more than 50 organizations opposed to the bill, said the legislation would empower patrol officers to make on-the-spot decisions about who could use what equipment to monitor the air, creating a "chilling effect" on those gathering environmental data.

Shufro cited the post-9/11 period as a time when privately gathered environmental data served the public interest.

"In times of emergencies, [the police department's] conservative response will be to issue tickets or seize the equipment or take the person in for questioning," he said. "We feel this is an inappropriate use of police power."

The police department's deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, Richard Falkenrath, argues that a permit process would ensure that private companies bought equipment on a par with that used by the police, allowing police to know that an alert was valid. If private companies begin to adopt less sophisticated equipment, he warned, it could lead to unnecessary, expensive or disruptive emergency responses.

"We have an interest in limiting excessive false alarms, and we have an interest in the private sector being able to procure reliable detections sensors," he said. Falkenrath said he was aware that "major companies" in Manhattan have looked into buying detectors in recent years, but he did not know if any are currently being used by the private sector. The NYPD keeps its own chemical, biological, chemical and nuclear sensors.

The initial bill, which the Bloomberg administration requested late last year, was later amended to include exemptions for technologies commonly used for workplace and environmental monitoring. A requirement was also added that police issue a ticket in the event of a violation.

Public safety committee chairman Peter Vallone Jr. said a future version of the bill may also include a requirement that police get a court order before seizing equipment.

"The police department has assured us that they only want to regulate early warning devices, not equipment used to monitor the environment after an event," Vallone said. "The hard part is getting the law to reflect that."