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BALTIMORE — Legislation being prepared for the 2009 General Assembly would require police to articulate reasonable suspicions for criminal activities before engaging in covert surveillance of political groups.

Officers would not need probable cause, a higher standard, but they would need more than just a hunch, said Sen. Jamie Raskin, a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, which is likely to hear the bill.

"What we need are guidelines to constrain a law enforcement institution that has really lost their way," Raskin said. "What we're saying is their investigation is a real diversion from the work we hope the police should be doing."

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union released documents from a Maryland Public Information Act request that detailed covert surveillance by the Maryland State Police against political groups.

Details that would reveal why the groups were targeted are hidden behind thick black marker on the heavily redacted pages.

The ACLU sparked the controversy last summer with the disclosure that the undercover police conducted surveillance of anti-war groups and death penalty opponents and entered their names and activities into databases.

The revelations led to an investigation by former Maryland Attorney General Stephen Sachs, who found that the police conduct should be prohibited.

State police spokesman Greg Shipley said the legislation is not necessary, because Col. Terrence Sheridan, state police superintendent, already has put regulations in place to prevent such spying from occurring again.

"If legislation is passed, we will implement that legislation and abide by the law," Shipley said.

Regulations, however, could change with the next administration, said Del. Tom Hucker, who said he will be a sponsor of the legislation in the House.

"The legislature is going to want to act in a reasonable way so our constituents are not investigated in an unreasonable way," said Hucker (D-Dist. 20) of Silver Spring.

Raskin said a controversy erupted in the 1970s when Baltimore police spied on political groups.

"If we really want to prevent this from happening again in our history, we have to write it into law prohibiting from using the state police as thought police," he said.

The ACLU remains dissatisfied with the information released, and more PIA requests and lawsuits are possible, said David Rocah, an ACLU staff attorney.

"We do not have what we asked for from Day 1, which is a thorough and transparent accounting," Rocah said.

Raskin (D-Dist. 20) of Silver Spring said the legislation is still being drafted. One of the things being studied is whether the bill will include judicial relief if police are caught spying again.

Shipley said one of the reasons police kept the records was to know what resources police would need to protect the groups from counter-demonstrations.

Replied Rocah: "Oh, give me a break."

The ACLU presented documents from database entries of 19 activists, and some of the pages have only a few words visible. The state police said 53 people were labeled terrorists in their database. The ACLU does not represent all of them. Some are not coming forward because they do not want potential employers to know that police created files about them, Rocah said.

State police have said the spying took place between March 2005 and May 2006. But the files include at least three database entries modified on July 24, 2008.

Shipley said the database sets that date whenever a record is opened. But Rocah said all the dates would be set to the date when the records were printed to fulfill the information act request.

One of the activists at Wednesday's press conference was Barry Kissin of Frederick. Kissin, 57, ran as a Democrat for the 6th District congressional seat in the 2006 election. The database labels his "primary crime" as "AA MSP: Terrorism — Anti Govern." His secondary crime, according to the documents, is "AA MSP: Terrorism — Anti-War Protestors."

Kissin is a member of the Frederick Progressive Action Committee, which according to the files is "an activist group based in Frederick, Maryland working for social, economic and environmental justice."

One page says an undercover police officer attended a meeting along with Kissin and two others. In between the thick black lines, the document says that the four discussed protests at Fort Detrick, an Army installation in Frederick that studies potential bioterrorism threats.

Kissin has opposed an expansion of the laboratories at Detrick because he believes they represent a threat to the nearby community.

At the press conference, Kissin said he didn't believe keeping a file on his activities was wrong. The wrong was in the covert intrusion and the secrecy surrounding it.

"It's a more serious wrong because it communicates that they are continuing in the same pattern," he said.

On Monday, three U.S. senators sent letters to federal officials, raising questions about whether the names of protesters were added to federal databases.

Benjamin L. Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski, both of Maryland, and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said they wanted to know why the state police incident occurred and what was being done to prevent it from repeating.

The letter was sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey; Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; FBI Director Robert Mueller; Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency; and Michael Leiter, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center.

Their letter asks a series of questions, including what information was shared, whether it still exists in federal databases, if any of the activists have been placed on a terrorism-related watch list, and if anyone at a federal agency informed the Maryland State Police that the information was being improperly entered into an agency database.