Most of what's being criticized among the NYPD's tactics against RNC protestors is genuinely questionable behavior, such as entering protestors' meetings by lying to the organizers. I only would caution civil libertarians to be careful of what they label as "spying," and not include monitoring of publicly visible behavior in that category.

There was a tradition of soap-box public speaking in Sator Square. "Speaking" was stretching a point to cover the ranters, haranguers and occasional self-absorbed mumblers that spaced themselves at intervals amongst the crowds. And, traditionally, people said whatever was on their minds and at the top of their voices. The Patrician, it was said, looked kindly on the custom. He did. And very closely, too. He probably had someone make notes.

So did the Watch.

It wasn't spying, Commander Vimes told himself. Spying was when you crept around peeking in windows. It wasn't spying when you had to stand back a bit so that you weren't deafened.

Also, in nominations for "dumbest thing read today," I would point guest blogger Dave to this New York Sun piece, which teases with the headline "Obama's View of the Constitution Hinted in Article," and begins with "Is Barack Obama a space cadet?" Yet the big revelation is that Obama "was credited for editorial or research assistance in a page-one footnote of what may be the zaniest-titled article ever published by the Harvard Law Review: 'The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics,' authored by noted legal scholar Laurence Tribe." If editors of law journals are to be dogged by every article published during their tenure, that will make those publications even duller than they are. And why the specification of a "page-one footnote"? Does reporter Gary Shapiro know of a law review that puts the author's note on some other page?