Tomorrow, lawyers for the city will ask U.S. District Judge Charles Haight III to give New York back control of its police department. It’s about time. For some 20 years Judge Haight, who was elevated to the bench by President Ford, has been monitoring the police department to ensure detectives aren’t investigating activities that are purely political.

These rules stem from a 1985 consent decree called Handschu. The pact came in a lawsuit against the police by groups that said they were spied upon. The rules changed following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Judge Haight gave greater discretion to the police to comb through this city for terrorists. The police have won one particularly important conviction in a case involving a plan to bomb the Herald Square subway station.

In a ruling two months ago, however, Judge Haight began heading back in the other direction. He castigated the police department for a couple of what he called “egregious” instances in which the police had videotaped protesters around town without a lot of advance paperwork. The judge’s decision did not involve terrorism investigations, however, and he did not ban such video-taping outright but merely required authorization by a top officer of the department.

Our own sense is that the citizens of this city are as worried about police officers videotaping public gatherings and protests as they are about the war, and in an era of plunging crime rates, most New Yorkers have soaring confidence in the police. If camcorder-toting tourists and countless security cameras can peer at the town everyday, why would anyone object to the city’s Finest doing the same, particularly since such tapes may not only yield valuable information in terrorism investigations but also serve as courtroom evidence should a crime be committed in public.

The Supreme Court has already made clear that there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits police officers from filming public events. And all the business about videotaping is really only one tiny part of the Handschu rules. Nonetheless, it seems to be the rule that broke the NYPD’s back, which is why the city used the latest decision as an opportunity to question whether the judge even has the authority to be tinkering so closely with police policy.

This is an issue that strongly implicates the principles of federalism. It also implicates our safety. New Yorkers have not for a single second forgotten that they are the number one target of terrorists. New Yorkers deserve to have Commissioner Kelly and his command, not Judge Haight, deciding police protocol. Whether the city will be able to convince the judge is doubtful, but the city would be best served by a vigorous pleading and, if it loses, an ambitious appeal as far as it can be heard.