[News] Muslims file federal suit to stop NYPD spying

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Muslims file federal suit to stop NYPD spying

Published June 06, 2012

Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/06/nj-muslims-file-federal-suit-to-stop-nypd-spying/

WASHINGTON –  Eight Muslims filed a federal 
lawsuit Wednesday in New Jersey to force the New 
York Police Department to end its surveillance 
and other intelligence-gathering practices 
targeting Muslims in the years after the 2001 
terrorist attacks. The lawsuit alleged that the 
police activities were unconstitutional because 
they focused on people's religion, national origin and race.

It is the first lawsuit to directly challenge the 
NYPD's surveillance programs, which were the 
subject of an investigative series by The 
Associated Press since last year. Based on 
internal NYPD reports and interviews with 
officials involved in the programs, the AP 
reported that the NYPD conducted wholesale 
surveillance of entire Muslim neighborhoods, 
chronicling daily life including where people 
ate, prayed and got their hair cut. Police 
infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student 
groups and investigated hundreds more.

Syed Farhaj Hassan, one of the plaintiffs, 
stopped attending one mosque as often after he 
learned it was one of four where he worships that 
were included in NYPD files. Those mosques were 
located along the East Coast from central 
Connecticut to the Philadelphia suburbs, but none 
was linked to terrorism, either publicly or in the confidential NYPD documents.

Hassan, an Army reservist from a small town 
outside of New Brunswick, N.J., said he was 
concerned that anything linking his life to 
potential terrorism would hurt his military security clearance.

"Guilt by association was forced on me," Hassan said.

The NYPD did not respond to questions about the 
lawsuit but noted the New Jersey attorney general 
determined last month that NYPD activities in New Jersey were legal.

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said his 
department is obligated to do this type of 
surveillance in order to protect New York from 
another 9/11. Kelly has said the 2001 attacks 
proved that New Yorkers could not rely solely on 
the federal government for protection, and the 
NYPD needed to enhance its efforts.

Hassan said he served in Iraq in 2003 to stop the 
atrocities of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's secret police.

"I didn't know they had one across the Hudson," 
he said, referring to the NYPD intelligence division.

California-based Muslim Advocates, a civil rights 
organization that meets regularly with 
representatives of the Obama administration, is 
representing the plaintiffs in the case for free.

"The NYPD program is founded upon a false and 
constitutionally impermissible premise: that 
Muslim religious identity is a legitimate 
criterion for selection of law-enforcement 
surveillance targets," the lawsuit said.

New Jersey lawmakers were outraged earlier this 
year when they learned of the surveillance. But 
after a three-month review, the state's attorney 
general found that the NYPD did not violate any 
state laws when it spied on Muslim neighborhoods 
and organizations. The attorney general found no 
recourse for the state of New Jersey to stop the 
NYPD from infiltrating Muslim student groups, 
video-taping mosque-goers or collecting their 
license plate numbers as they prayed.

No court has ruled that the NYPD programs were 
illegal. But the division operates without 
significant oversight: The New York City Council 
does not believe it has the expertise to oversee 
the intelligence division, and Congress believes 
the NYPD is not part of its jurisdiction even 
though the police department receives billions in federal funding each year.

Members of Congress and civil rights groups have 
urged the Justice Department to investigate the 
NYPD's practices. A Justice Department 
spokeswoman said they are still reviewing the 
requests. Federal investigations into police 
departments typically focus on police abuse or 
racial profiling in arrests. Since 9/11, the 
Justice Department has never publicly 
investigated a police department for its 
surveillance in national security investigations.

Because of widespread civil rights abuses during 
the 1950s and 1960s, the NYPD has been limited by 
a court order in what intelligence it can gather 
on innocent people. Lawyers in that case have 
questioned whether the post-9/11 spying violates 
that order. The lawsuit filed Wednesday is a separate legal challenge.

The NYPD and New York officials have said the 
surveillance programs violated no one's 
constitutional rights, and the NYPD is allowed to 
travel anywhere to collect information. Officials 
have said NYPD lawyers closely review the intelligence division's programs.

"The constitutional violation that the NYPD did 
commit was blanket surveillance of a group based 
on religion," said Glenn Katon, Muslim Advocate's 
legal director. He said a program that treats 
people differently based on religion, national 
origin or race is subject to the Constitution. 
"That's the crux of our claim," he said.

A George Washington University law professor, 
Jonathan Turley, said it would be a challenge to 
convince the government that the NYPD's practices 
were illegal because the courts and Congress have 
allowed more and more surveillance in the years 
since 9/11. But, he said, most of these questions 
have been handled in policy debates and not in the court systems.

Nineteen-year-old Moiz Mohammed, a sophomore at 
Rutgers University, said he was moved to join the 
lawsuit after reading reports that the NYPD had 
conducted surveillance of Muslim student groups 
at colleges across the Northeast, including his 
own. He said the revelations had made him nervous 
to pray in public or engage in lively debates 
with fellow students ­ a practice he said he once 
most enjoyed about the college atmosphere.

"It's such an unfair thing going on: Here I am, I 
am an American citizen, I was born here, I am law 
abiding, I volunteer in my community, I have 
dialogues and good relationships with Muslims and 
non-Muslims alike, and the NYPD here is surveilling people like me?"

"We feel as though it was a violation of our 
constitutional and our civil and our human 
rights," said Abdul Kareem Muhammad, one of the 
plaintiff's in the case. Muhammad is the imam of 
the Newark mosque, Masjid al-Haqq. That mosque 
was listed and pictured in a September 2007 NYPD report on Newark.

"We have a very strong objection to that," 
Muhammad said. "We condemn and denounce every form of terrorism."

Muhammad said he and other Muslim community 
leaders have not been given assurances that the 
NYPD is no longer conducting surveillance on their communities.

"That's become very disturbing, too," Muhammad 
said. "There's a possibility that this is still going on."

___

Associated Press reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam 
Goldman in Washington, Samantha Henry in Newark, 
and Tom Hays and researcher Judith Ausuebel in 
New York contributed to this story.

Read more: 
<http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/06/nj-muslims-file-federal-suit-to-stop-nypd-spying/#ixzz1x1cZofwm>http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/06/nj-muslims-file-federal-suit-to-stop-nypd-spying/#ixzz1x1cZofwm




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