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Edison Police Chief Thomas Bryan stands outside police headquarters in this 2011 photo.

(Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger)

Private conversations, including legally protected attorney-client discussions, have been secretly recorded inside Edison police headquarters, prompting calls for state and federal investigations and stoking new tensions in a department long wracked by internal strife.

The conversations were picked up by dozens of audio-enabled surveillance cameras installed throughout the building in January.

At the time, Police Chief Thomas Bryan assured Edison’s mayor and business administrator, along with wary union officials, that microphones on the cameras would be disabled to guard against an invasion of privacy, the officials said.

Officers learned otherwise last weekend, when they heard audio-playback on a number of surveillance videos, said James Mets, a lawyer for the Superior Officers Association, the union that represents sergeants, lieutenants and captains.

It remains unclear how long the audio has been operating. In a memo to the department's officers, Bryan said the company that installed the cameras told him the problem developed about two weeks ago. The union, however, has uncovered evidence the recordings go back to at least October, Mets said.

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Bruce Polkowitz, president of the Superior Officers Association, said he suspects they date to the system's installation 11 months ago.

"This potentially involves thousands and thousands of conversations, not only between police officers, but between ordinary citizens and their attorneys, victims of crime and other law enforcement agencies," Polkowitz said. "They had every expectation of privacy in their conversations, the same as if they were in their own homes."

The discovery has outraged rank-and-file officers and fanned suspicions of spying and dirty play in a department where officers have been feuding among themselves and with their chief for years. It also raises civil liberties concerns for the prosecutors, private-practice attorneys and civilians who frequent the building or attend municipal court.

Mets called the recording a possible violation of state and federal wiretapping laws, a view shared by two legal experts interviewed by The Star-Ledger. Except in rare circumstances, New Jersey’s wiretapping act forbids audio recording of conversations if all participants are unaware of it.

"If the conduct that has been alleged is true, township officials and Chief Bryan may be subject to criminal prosecution," Mets wrote Thursday in a letter to the township attorney.

The four-page letter was copied to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the state Attorney General's Office and Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey. Mets urged one or all of the agencies to investigate, saying Bryan should not conduct a probe because he is potentially at fault.

A spokesman for Carey would neither confirm not deny an investigation was underway. But according to two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the situation, the prosecutor’s office seized several computer servers from police headquarters on Wednesday.

Videos from the cameras are stored on the servers, which also run the police department’s email system, the officials said. As a result of the seizure, the email system was temporarily down. The officials asked that their names be withheld because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office declined comment, saying Mets’ letter had not been received.

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, said her office was aware of the allegations and would "respond in due course." She declined to elaborate.

In a statement, Bryan confirmed that microphones were operational on cameras throughout the department. But he said neither he nor anyone on his command staff authorized the audio surveillance, and he said he was unaware it was taking place until the matter was brought to his attention last week.

"Once we were made aware that the microphones on the entire system were active, we took immediate corrective action to disable the audio microphones throughout the police department," Bryan said.

Microphones on cameras facing prisoner cells will remain active, he said.

Bryan laid the blame on Safe Life Security, the Manalapan company that installed the surveillance system.

"The vendor that originally installed the cameras has taken full responsibility for the error and has acknowledged that he was explicitly told by members of this administration to disable the audio microphones in all other areas of the police department with the exception of the cell block area upon installation," Bryan said.

The company’s owner, Avi Kashi, declined to comment when reached by The Star-Ledger.

The law enforcement officials said the company’s technicians were seen inside headquarters late last week, disabling the microphones camera by camera.

It could not be determined whether the surveillance videos were regularly reviewed by members of the department. Bryan declined to answer questions beyond his statement.

About 40 cameras in all were placed around the department, including in hallways, the muster room and the watch commander’s office, where Polkowitz, the SOA president, regularly conducted confidential union business, Mets said.

Another camera records the area outside internal affairs. That hallway is often the scene of private conversations between officers called in for questioning and their lawyers or union representatives.

The lobby outside municipal court, where lawyers regularly confer with clients, also was under surveillance.

Ed Barocas, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, called the audio-recording a violation of New Jersey’s wiretap statute.

"Even if you’re accidentally capturing these conversations, it’s a violation of law," Barocas said.

New Jersey is a one-party consent state, meaning a phone call or in-person conversation may be legally recorded if one of the parties is aware of the recording, Barocas said.

Recording becomes illegal, even in a public place, if two or more parties to a conversation don’t know they’re being recorded and if they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Two people speaking openly on a public street might not have that expectation of privacy, but if they move to a quiet side street, an eavesdropping device planted nearby could create a privacy violation, Barocas said.

Officers in Edison have an added expectation of privacy if the chief assured them they would not be recorded, said Ruben Sinins, a Springfield attorney with extensive experience litigating privacy issues.

Sinins called the audio surveillance "troubling" and said the recordings should not be used as a basis for internal discipline or prosecution.

David DeFillippo, a lawyer who represents the Policemen’s Benevolent Association in Edison, said the union’s members were "outraged" by the finding.

"The PBA sought assurances from the township and received assurances from the township that the cameras were not equipped with audio," DeFillippo said. "To discover the information provided to us was incorrect is, to say the least, dumbfounding."

DeFillippo and Mets, the attorney for the Superior Officers Association, said they were considering lawsuits against Bryan and the township.

Polkowitz called the recording a "massive breach of privacy" and questioned why the surveillance system wasn’t tested after its installation to ensure the audio was disabled.

"In all fairness, I haven’t had a chance to speak with the chief of police," he said. "However, it is my belief there should have been measures put in place right from the beginning to make sure audio would not be enabled."

While extremely rare, eavesdropping in police departments is not unique. In 1994, Woodbridge’s police union settled a lawsuit with the township after the discovery of listening devices in air conditioning vents throughout the building. Six years later, police officers at Rutgers University’s Newark campus accused their chief of spying on them with bugs and hidden cameras.

In a handful of other cases, unions or specific officers brought suit over hidden video cameras. Those cases did not involve audio surveillance.

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