New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly refuse to relinquish "broken windows"/"quality of life" police enforcement, a legacy of Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the Manhattan Institute (the conservative think tank whose ideas he promoted)
Thanks in large part to the leadership of State Sen. Eric Adams of Brooklyn, the State Legislature has passed a bill to curb one abusive component of broken windows policing -- permanent data retention on people who are stopped and frisked, but not arrested or fined.
In a free society, surely innocent people have the right to keep personal information out of a permanent police data base.
Now, it's up to Gov. David Paterson (who in the past has been sensitive to civil liberties issues), to do the right thing and sign this bill into law, notwithstanding the complaints of Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly.
As columnist Bob Herbert argues in Monday's New York Times, signing this bill "should be an easy call for the governor."http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/06herbert.html
Civil liberties must matter in the world's greatest city.
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