People curious to know whether a Denver police intelligence unit spied on them can find out for free at the Denver Public Library.
The library on Wednesday began taking requests from people wanting to get copies of documents detailing when and where police spied on them, said Jim Kroll, manager of the library’s Western History/Genealogy Department.
It will take up to 30 days to make copies of all reports under a person’s name and then send the reports to applicants. People will get a reply whether they were spied on or not.
Since 1953, the Denver Intelligence Bureau watched political protesters and Klu Klux Klan members while also photographing drug dealers, mobsters, suspected killers and others.
The process takes so long partly because of the meticulous steps the library will take to ensure privacy of the 51,000 people who were spied on, Kroll said. All names on each document will be redacted, except that of the person requesting the document, he said. The city paid $93,000 to organize the so-called spy files and provide copies of them to people for free for the first year.
The library also has several boxes of other materials, including pamphlets handed out at rallies by different groups for and against abortion. These files are more generic and can be viewed in the library’s Western History section on the fifth floor.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
