Note that the editorial by the New York Times does not object to spying on Muslims; it merely object to spying on "law-abiding" Muslims. So if a Muslim, for example, shop lifts or is late in filing for taxes, he/she should be spied on. "In a particularly striking declaration, a Queens man who said the Police
Department paid him to spy on Muslims last year also said he was
assigned to spy on a lecture at the Muslim Student Association at John
Jay College of Criminal Justice even though the police did not think the
group was “doing anything wrong.” He said his handler told him that the
department considered “being a religious Muslim a terrorism indicator.” The man said he took pictures of those in the John Jay group and
recorded their license plate numbers. While visiting mosques, he
photographed worshipers and recorded cellphone numbers of people who
attended Islamic instruction classes, forwarding all of it to his
handler. At no point did his handler say he was going too far.
The Police Department’s agent said he used what the police called the
“create and capture” method. He pretended “to be a devout Muslim and
start an inflammatory conversation about jihad or terrorism and then
capture the response to send to the N.Y.P.D.” According to court documents, the New York City police routinely
selected Muslim groups for surveillance and infiltration, even when they
did not sponsor unlawful or terrorist acts and were not accused of
contributing to them. Rather, the motion says, “they were all under
investigation by undercovers or other infiltrators based on their
theological views, status and association.” Despite deploying an army of spies, the plaintiffs say, the Police
Department never uncovered one of the so-called “incubators” of
radicalism they set out to find. The lawyers also say that commanding
officers criticized a detective for returning from spying expeditions
without inflammatory information on the people he had been watching. If
true, that could easily lead officers to hype their findings so they
remain in good standing with their superiors.
The motion charges the city with violating the Handschu agreement by
systematically retaining records of conversations in public places that
do not pertain to “potential unlawful activity.” Plaintiffs lawyers say they found scores of cases in which innocuous
conversations recorded in public places were maintained in police
records. One such conversation involved two Bengali speakers, one of
whom spoke favorably of the United States government, discussing the
president’s State of the Union address. The court documents offer more than ample reason to be concerned about
possible overreach and unconstitutional activity by the Police
Department investigators. If the assertions by the Handschu lawyers are
borne out in court, the judge should consider appointing an independent
monitor to review department investigations."
