In 2005, the Maryland State Police began a surveillance program to identify potential terrorists. It ended up identifying a lot more than terrorists.

Human rights groups, like Amnesty International, consumers angry over a 72% electricity rate hike and advocates for bike lanes became the targets of investigations and files.

Initially, the police were concerned about disruptions involving scheduled executions for two men on death row.

An undercover officer worked 14 months monitoring peaceful protest groups. At best, the undercover work was clumsy. The agent changed her name in the middle of the surveillance, citing a marriage. She brought a laptop and took notes on it at meetings. She even sent emails from a domain linked to the state police.

In the end, she ended up investigating peaceful vigils outside prisons and a poetry reading commemorating the victims of the atomic bomb attacks on Japan. Her weekly reports included 288 hours of investigative, undercover work.

Yet the terrorists remained elusive.

The surveillance program did come upon at least one hot lead for a criminal act. They learned in 2005 that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was preparing a protest at a failing chicken farm. Officers learned that the group might even try “stealing the chickens.” An undercover trooper attended a speech by PETA’s president and hung around afterwards to see if anyone talked about chickens. No one did, and no terrorists were found.

In order to control costs, the program used a software database for drug-related criminal information. However, none of the categories fit their needs, so they created one called “terrorist”. Eventually 53 names ended on the database, including pacifist nuns, environmentalists and activists protesting Lockheed Martin’s defense contracts.

One of those was Pat Elder, a long-time peace activist. Here is his blacked-out file. It recorded such startling information as a Martin Luther King Day demonstration at Lockheed Martin and that Elder has no criminal record.

They also investigate animal rights activist Nadine Bloch. She had a 20-page file on her activities that included making giant puppets for anti-war demonstrations. The report minced no words or this subversive behavior: “She is involved in puppet making and allows anarchists to utilize her property for meetings.”

The information was eventually shared with other state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the NSA. Now the people whose names were listed fear they will be forever labeled as terrorists because of a misguided police program.

Many are pressing the state to come clean on the issue. Although the Maryland State Police defend the investigation as reasonable, they do agree that labeling protesters as “terrorists” was “incorrect and improper.”

Political pressure is intensifying as the State Police try to limit the damage.

Former Maryland Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs, in a 93-page report requested by Gov. Martin O’Malley, said the surveillance “intruded upon the ability of law-abiding Marylanders to associate and express themselves freely.” He added that the police activity was “inconsistent with an overarching value in our democratic society — the free and unfettered debate of important public questions. Such police conduct ought to be prohibited as a matter of public policy.”

With the ACLU involved and more information dribbling out about the surveillance, this may only be the begining of a long embarassment for the state of Maryland. The State Police are also expecting lawsuits.