Hoover must be smiling

Chicago Police officers infiltrated five protest groups in 2002 and launched four other spying operations in 2003 — actions that civil rights activists are calling outrageous.

The investigations have come in the wake of a court decision that expanded the department’s intelligence-gathering powers.

In 2002, undercover officers were assigned to attend meetings, rallies and fund-raisers of the Chicago Direct Action Network, the American Friends Service Committee, The Autonomous Zone, Not in Our Name, and Anarchist Black Cross.

Police zeroed in on the groups because protesters were threatening to disrupt the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue — a meeting of international business leaders held in Chicago in 2002 — according to an internal police audit obtained by the Sun-Times. The department made video and audio recordings of the protests, the audit said.