By CELESTE KATZ and MICHELE McPHEE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A Queens man has created a Web site divulging home addresses and other personal details of police officers - even putting up photos of undercover detectives. The NYPD's Intelligence Division is reviewing the Web site to see if harassment charges are warranted against its creator, Alan Munn, 53, of Jackson Heights.
One NYPD undercover noted that "all someone needs is the name of one of us, especially while we are on trial, and they can get everything about us.
"These guys are providing a service to the criminal world, to the criminal element," the undercover said. "We put our families at risk enough without guys like this making it more dangerous by revealing our identities."
In some cases, Munn reveals when and where cops regularly work out, play football or jog. He indicates when other cops get off work.
He even lists the names of some of the cops' children.
In 1999, Munn, who could not be reached for comment, was found guilty of harassment when he used the Internet to threaten an NYPD lieutenant, whose name is being withheld by the Daily News.
Munn asked Internet users to "please kill [the officer], all other NYPD cops and all of their adult relatives and friends."
But because Munn is not making overt threats against the police officers, said Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman, the cops' hands may be tied.
"We are exploring the possibility that anyone engaging in this kind of behavior can be charged with stalking, harassment and reckless endangerment," Browne said.
Constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams said the Web site poses a problem that is "not so much a legal issue as a moral and an ethical one."
"As a general legal proposition, people are generally allowed to reveal what they know, and to simply rely on the fact that you're allowed to provide truthful information," he said. "But there are some circumstances in which revealing the information is troubling."
City Council Minority Leader James Oddo said the Web site should be shut down, saying "absolutely nothing good could come from such a Web site.
"Is he supplying the angry, the demented, the deranged, [with] the means to act on whatever troubles them?" Oddo said. "Folks logging on to this site wouldn't do so with the intention of selling us girl scout cookies."
Originally published on March 10, 2004
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