Opinion ID: 1235711
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: (3) Because of the potentially substantial inhibition of free expression and association posed by the police department's alleged covert surveillance of university classes and organization meetings, such conduct presumptively violates our state and federal Constitutions.

Text: At the outset we note that for purposes of the present appeal, defendant's demurrer admits the truthfulness of the properly pleaded factual allegations of the complaint. (See, e.g., Serrano v. Priest (1971) 5 Cal.3d 584, 591 [96 Cal. Rptr. 601, 487 P.2d 1241, 41 A.L.R.3d 1187].) Accordingly, we must assume that the Los Angeles Police Department is conducting a regular, ongoing covert surveillance operation of university classes and university-recognized organizations, and is compiling police dossiers on matters which pertain to no illegal activity or acts. The present pleadings do not indicate any limits on the scope or extent of these undercover activities. In support of the trial court's ruling that these facts, even if true, do not demonstrate illegal governmental behavior, defendant argues that the undercover activities at issue here are no different than the normal undercover police operations which the courts have regularly sanctioned. In this connection, defendant relies heavily on the statement of the United States Supreme Court in Lewis v. United States (1966) 385 U.S. 206, 209 [17 L.Ed.2d 312, 315, 87 S.Ct. 424], declaring that in the detection of many types of crime, the Government is entitled to use decoys and to conceal the identity of its agents. The undercover police activity at issue in Lewis  involving the investigation of specific criminal activity by an undercover narcotics agent  is, however, a far cry from the police surveillance network at issue in this case. Moreover, even within the realm of the investigation of specific crimes, the Lewis court did not grant blanket approval to all covert operations, emphasizing that in this area, each case must be judged on its own particular facts. (385 U.S. at p. 212 [17 L.Ed.2d at p. 316].) The gist of defendant's position, as we understand it, is that the gathering of intelligence information to enable the police to anticipate and perhaps prevent future criminal activity is a legitimate and important police function and consequently that under all circumstances the police may routinely utilize undercover agents to fulfill such a function. Although the police unquestionably pursue a legitimate interest in gathering information to forestall future criminal acts, the identification of that legitimate interest is just the beginning point of analysis in this case, not, as defendant suggests, the conclusion. (4) The inherent legitimacy of the police intelligence gathering function does not grant the police the unbridled power to pursue that function by any and all means. In this realm, as in all others, the permissible limits of governmental action are circumscribed by the federal Bill of Rights and the comparable protections of our state Constitution. [2] The most familiar limitations on police investigatory and surveillance activities, of course, find embodiment in the Fourth Amendment of the federal Constitution and article I, section 13 (formerly art. I, § 19) of the California Constitution. On numerous occasions in the past, these provisions have been applied to preclude specific ongoing police investigatory practices. Thus, for example, the court in Wirin v. Parker, supra, 48 Cal.2d 890, prohibited the police practice of conducting warrantless surveillance of private residences by means of concealed microphones. And, in a series of cases culminating in the recent opinion in People v. Triggs (1973) 8 Cal.3d 884 [106 Cal. Rptr. 408, 506 P.2d 232], our court has invalidated covert police investigation involving routine and continual surveillance of public restrooms. (See Bielicki v. Superior Court (1962) 57 Cal.2d 602 [21 Cal. Rptr. 552, 371 P.2d 288]; Britt v. Superior Court (1962) 58 Cal.2d 469 [24 Cal. Rptr. 849, 374 P.2d 817].) Indeed, in United States v. United States District Court (1972) 407 U.S. 297 [32 L.Ed.2d 752, 92 S.Ct. 2125], the United States Supreme Court recently rejected a contention  somewhat analogous to that proposed in the instant case  that governmental intelligence operations in domestic security cases were immune from Fourth Amendment proscriptions, holding that the traditional constitutional guarantees could not be disregarded. Unlike these past cases involving the limits on police surveillance prescribed by the constitutional search and seizure provisions, the instant case presents the more unusual question of the limits placed upon police investigatory activities by the guarantees of freedom of speech. (U.S. Const., 1st & 14th Amends.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 2.) [3] As discussed below, this issue is not entirely novel; to our knowledge, however, the present case represents the first instance in which a court has confronted the issue in relation to ongoing police surveillance of a university community. (5) Our analysis of the limits imposed by the First Amendment upon police surveillance activities must begin with the recognition that with respect to First Amendment freedoms the Constitution's protection is not limited to direct interference with fundamental rights. ( Healy v. James (1972) 408 U.S. 169, 183 [33 L.Ed.2d 266, 280, 92 S.Ct. 2338].) Thus, although police surveillance of university classrooms and organization meetings may not constitute a direct prohibition of speech or association, such surveillance may still run afoul of the constitutional guarantee if the effect of such activity is to chill constitutionally protected activity. In the domain of these indispensable liberties, whether of speech, press, or association, the decisions of this Court recognize that abridgement of such rights, even though unintended, may inevitably follow from varied forms of governmental action. ( N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama (1958) 357 U.S. 449, 461 [2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1499, 78 S.Ct. 1163].) As the United States Supreme Court stated recently in Healy v. James, supra, 408 U.S. 169, 183 [33 L.Ed.2d 266, 280-281]: We are not free to disregard the practical realities. Mr. Justice Stewart has made the salient point: `Freedoms such as these are protected not only against heavy-handed frontal attack, but also from being stifled by more subtle governmental interference.' [Citation.] As a practical matter, the presence in a university classroom of undercover officers taking notes to be preserved in police dossiers must inevitably inhibit the exercise of free speech both by professors and students. (6) In a line of cases stretching over the past two decades, the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that to compel an individual to disclose his political ideas or affiliations to the government is to deter the exercise of First Amendment rights. Thus, for example, in N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama, supra, 357 U.S. 449, 462 [2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1499-1500], the Supreme Court struck down a court order requiring the NAACP to disclose its membership lists, declaring: It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute [an] effective ... restraint on freedom of association.... Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs. And in Talley v. California (1960) 362 U.S. 60, 64 [4 L.Ed.2d 559, 563, 80 S.Ct. 536], the court invalidated a city ordinance requiring all handbills to include the names and addresses of the persons who had prepared the material, finding that [t]here can be no doubt that such an identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression. (See also Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965) 381 U.S. 301, 307 [14 L.Ed.2d 398, 402, 85 S.Ct. 1493].) [4] In like manner, covert police surveillance and intelligence gathering may potentially impose a significant inhibiting effect on the free expression of ideas. As the United States Supreme Court only recently observed: Official surveillance, whether its purpose be criminal investigation or ongoing intelligence gathering, risks infringement of constitutionally protected privacy of speech. ( United States v. United States District Court, supra, 407 U.S. 297, 320 [32 L.Ed.2d 752, 768].) The threat to First Amendment freedoms posed by any covert intelligence gathering network is considerably exacerbated when, as in the instant case, the police surveillance activities focus upon university classrooms and their environs. As the United States Supreme Court has recognized time and again: The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools. ( Shelton v. Tucker (1960) 364 U.S. 479, 487 [5 L.Ed.2d 231, 236, 81 S.Ct. 247].) Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers [and students] concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.... The classroom is peculiarly the `marketplace of ideas.' The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth `out of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection' [Citation.] ( Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967) 385 U.S. 589, 603 [17 L.Ed.2d 629, 640, 87 S.Ct. 675].) In the past, threats to academic freedom have generally arisen from governmental conduct involving significantly less intrusion into the academic community than posed by the police activities at issue in the instant case. Thus, prior cases have most frequently involved either state statutes inquiring into teacher's organizational associations (see, e.g., Shelton v. Tucker, supra, 364 U.S. 479) or provisions requiring teachers to sign overly broad loyalty oaths. (See, e.g., Wieman v. Updegraff (1952) 344 U.S. 183 [97 L.Ed. 216, 73 S.Ct. 215]; Baggett v. Bullitt (1964) 377 U.S. 360 [12 L.Ed.2d 377, 84 S.Ct. 1316]; Monroe v. Trustees of the California State Colleges (1971) 6 Cal.3d 399 [99 Cal. Rptr. 129, 491 P.2d 1105].) Our research reveals only one previous instance, Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957) 354 U.S. 234 [1 L.Ed.2d 1311, 77 S.Ct. 1203], in which governmental inquiry sought to reach inside the classroom itself; the Supreme Court's stinging condemnation of that intrusive investigative effort illuminates the constitutional issues presented by the instant case. In Sweezy a state attorney general, in the course of a far-reaching investigation into subversive activities, asked Sweezy, a college professor, several questions about the contents of a guest lecture Sweezy had delivered to a class at the University of New Hampshire. [5] Sweezy refused to answer any questions about the lecture on the ground that such inquiries violated his First Amendment rights, but a state court held the professor in contempt. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court reversed the contempt order, and, in two separate opinions, emphasized in strong language the grave dangers presented by governmental intrusion into the contents of classroom discussion. Chief Justice Warren, writing for four justices, declared: The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident.... To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation.... Scholarship cannot flourish in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. (354 U.S. at p. 250 [1 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1324-1325].) Justice Frankfurter, in a concurrence joined by Justice Harlan, was even more emphatic: These pages need not be burdened with proof ... of the dependence of a free society on free universities. This means the exclusion of governmental intervention in the intellectual life of a university. It matters little whether such intervention occurs avowedly or through action that inevitably tends to check the ardor and fearlessness of scholars, qualities at once so fragile and so indispensable for fruitful academic labor. ... [I]n these matters of the spirit inroads on legitimacy must be resisted at their incipiency. (Italics added.) (354 U.S. at pp. 262-263 [1 L.Ed.2d at pp. 1331-1332].) The police investigatory conduct at issue unquestionably poses at least as debilitating a threat to academic freedom as that presented by the governmental inquiry in Sweezy. According to the allegations of the complaint, which for purposes of this appeal must be accepted as true, the Los Angeles Police Department has established a network of undercover agents which keeps regular check on discussions occurring in various university classes. Because the identity of such police officers is unknown, no professor or student can be confident that whatever opinion he may express in class will not find its way into a police file. If the after-the-fact inquiry conducted in Sweezy threatened to cast a pall of orthodoxy over classroom debates, the covert presence of governmental agents within the classroom itself must cast a deeper shadow. The crucible of new thought is the university classroom; the campus is the sacred ground of free discussion. Once we expose the teacher or the student to possible future prosecution for the ideas he may express, we forfeit the security that nourishes change and advancement. The censorship of totalitarian regimes that so often condemns developments in art, science and politics is but a step removed from the inchoate surveillance of free discussion in the university; such intrusion stifles creativity and to a large degree shackles democracy. In other contexts, a number of courts have issued injunctions against continued police surveillance in cases in which such conduct imposed a similar chilling effect on First Amendment rights. In Local 309 v. Gates (N.D.Ind. 1948) 75 F. Supp. 620, strike activity by a local union had been accompanied by occasional outbreaks of violence. The state police initiated a practice of sending several uniformed policemen to all union meetings to take notes of the discussions that there occurred; the police justified the practice as an attempt to obtain information relating to future incidents of violence. The union sought an injunction against the police surveillance practice on First Amendment grounds. After a full hearing, the trial court granted the injunction, finding first that the presence of the police had in fact kept the union members from fully discussing their affairs, and second that the surveillance could not be justified as necessary to prevent violence because no evidence indicated that the union meetings had any connection with the sporadic incidents of violence. In Bee See Books Inc. v. Leary (S.D.N.Y. 1968) 291 F. Supp. 622, another federal court reached a similar conclusion in a different setting. In Bee See, the New York City Police Department had begun stationing uniformed police officers in adult bookstores to oversee the bookstore's operations and to detect sales of obscene material. Finding that the practical effect of the constant police surveillance substantially inhibited the sale of protected material, the court in Bee See enjoined the surveillance operations, concluding that the government could achieve the legitimate objective of controlling obscenity through alternative means less destructive of First Amendment rights. The First Amendment analysis undertaken by the courts in Gates and Bee See accords with the approach established by controlling United States Supreme Court precedent. Having found that the governmental activity in question (police surveillance) had a substantial inhibitory effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights, both courts carefully analyzed the proffered governmental explanation for the surveillance to determine whether it was sufficient to justify the resulting impingement on protected expression. [6] (7) As we have discussed above, the facts alleged in the instant complaint demonstrate police surveillance activity which is likely to pose a substantial restraint upon the exercise of First Amendment rights in university classes and organization meetings. In view of this significant potential chilling effect, the challenged surveillance activities can only be sustained if defendant can demonstrate a compelling state interest which justifies the resultant deterrence of First Amendment rights and which cannot be served by alternative means less intrusive on fundamental rights. (See, e.g., United States v. O'Brien (1968) 391 U.S. 367, 376-377 [20 L.Ed.2d 672, 679-680, 88 S.Ct. 1673]; N.A.A.C.P. v. Alabama, supra, 357 U.S. 449, 463 [2 L.Ed.2d 1488, 1500]; Shelton v. Tucker, supra, 364 U.S. 479, 488 [5 L.Ed.2d 231, 237]; cf. Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 499, 506-508 [55 Cal. Rptr. 401, 421 P.2d 409].) [7] In the instant case, defendant's burden of justification is very heavy indeed. Not only does the alleged covert intrusion into university classes and meetings pose a grave threat to the freedom of expression necessary for the preservation of the university as we know it today, but the complaint also alleges that the information gathered by the undercover police officers pertains to no illegal activity or acts. Because this case arises upon the sustaining of a demurrer, defendant has as yet given no explanation or justification for the alleged surveillance; indeed, defendant has yet to file any answer at all in this case. Thus, inasmuch as we have determined that the complaint does demonstrate a prima facie violation of First Amendment rights, the trial court erred in sustaining defendant's demurrer. The judgment must accordingly be reversed and the case remanded for a trial on the merits.