The New York Civil Liberties Union filed suit seeking public release of the daily schedules of police commissioner Raymond Kelly, the New York Times reports. The suit called Kelly “the most important appointed official” in city government, and said details of his meetings remain largely shrouded in secrecy.
“There is no good reason for Commissioner Kelly to withhold this information from the public,” said Donna Lieberman, director of the civil liberties group. “If it's safe for the leader of the country to disclose his schedule, then it's safe for the [police] commissioner to do the same.” The lawsuit, which seeks details of Kelly's appointments dating to 2002, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg tapped him for a second stint as police commissioner, was filed on behalf of Leonard Levitt, a former Newsday reporter who now writes a blog about law enforcement matters on his Web site, NYPD Confidential. The police department has asserted that disclosing Kelly's schedule over the past decade would endanger both the commissioner and the people with whom he met, said the civil liberties group.