COUNCIL WORRIED ABOUT SPYING : LAPD UNIT'S RULES NOT FINAL.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

Concerned that the Police Commission has relaxed rules on probes by the LAPD's Anti-Terrorist Division, the City Council voted Wednesday to review and possibly suggest changes to prevent abuses such as those that occurred during the police spying scandals of the 1980s.

The council action came after it called in LAPD officials, including Police Commission President Ray Fisher, to explain why the commission voted last week to give the Anti-Terrorist Division more latitude to use electronic surveillance and undercover operatives against groups or individuals suspected of terrorist activities.

``They (ATD) legitimately felt they were being hampered in doing effective investigation of threatened acts of terrorism,'' Fisher told the council.

He said the new rules retain close oversight of the unit by the Police Commission.

While deciding not to exercise its Proposition 5 powers to take jurisdiction of the matter from the commission, the council voted to send the new guidelines to the council's Public Safety Committee where possible modifications can be recommended to the commission.

``We still have some concerns because of past history,'' said Councilman Nate Holden. ``We need to put this all on the table in committee and then clean it up as much as we can.''

The rule changes approved by the Police Commission affected restrictions placed on the Anti-Terrorist Division in 1984 by a court consent decree in response to lawsuits charging illegal spying on politicians and political groups by the unit's predecessor, the Public Disorder Intelligence Division.

Council members Jackie Goldberg and Rita Walters said the past abuses by PDID included infiltrating the desegregation movement that Walters and Goldberg were part of more than a decade ago.

In another incident, an LAPD detective was found to have taken home files on political groups and to have shared some of the information with right-wing groups.

Goldberg said she feared the new rules could open the door to abuse, noting the changes appear to broaden the scope of what ATD can investigate from acts that cause ``significant disruption to the civil order'' to ``unlawful acts.''

``Unlawful acts could be civil disobedience by a nonviolent organization,'' Goldberg said.

She and other council members said there may be a need to include council members in the group that would approve undercover operations. Currently the chief and a police commissioner must approve undercover operations.

``I do not believe that the decision should be the chief's and the police commissioners' only to allow this to occur,'' she said.

However, Fisher told the council that he is concerned that confidential investigations not be disclosed to too many people.

``Once you intrude more people into the process, the greater is the risk for compromising the security, and the penalty for doing that is possibly the death of people,'' Fisher said.

Council members Marvin Braude, Joel Wachs and Laura Chick said the LAPD has undergone reform since the 1980s and is much less likely to allow abuses, especially with a Police Commission given more oversight powers.

``I feel good that this city has come along way in rectifying its abusive past,'' Wachs told his colleagues.

Added Braude, ``My own view is we have little to fear of excesses in this area.''