Civil rights lawyers: NYPD spying violates rules
ABOVE PHOTO: In this Aug. 18, 2011 file photo, people walk below a New York Police Department security camera, upper left, which was placed next to a mosque on Fulton Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York. Civil rights lawyers are telling a judge that the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslim communities violates federal guidelines established to stop the NYPD from conducting political surveillance.
(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
By Eileen Sullivan
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The New York Police Department’s focus on Muslims has renewed the political surveillance of the 1960s and ‘70s that was banned under a landmark legal ruling, according to a new court filing by civil rights lawyers. They are seeking an injunction against further surveillance of Muslims without evidence of crimes and a new court-appointed auditor to oversee police activities.
Describing continuing surveillance of Muslims as “widespread and intense,” the civil rights lawyers complained that the NYPD has monitored public places where Muslims eat, shop and worship and has kept records and notes about police observations despite any evidence of unlawful or terror-related activities. The lawyers said the NYPD’s actions violate rules, known as the Handschu guidelines, that a court had imposed as part of a 1985 landmark settlement with the NYPD to a lawsuit they filed.
“There is substantial persuasive evidence that the defendants are conducting investigations into organizations and individuals associated with the Muslim faith and the Muslim community in New York, and have been doing so for years, using intrusive methods, without a reasonable indication of unlawful activity, or a criminal predicate of any sort,” the lawyers wrote in a motion filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They said the NYPD’s actions were so “flagrant and persistent” that an auditor should be appointed.
A spokesman for the NYPD did not respond to a phone message and email request for comment from The Associated Press.
The NYPD and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said the department follows the Handschu guidelines and did not break any laws over the course of its surveillance of Muslim communities. NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said the department has plenty of oversight, including five district attorneys, a committee that investigates police corruption, the NYPD’s own internal affairs office and the court-imposed Handschu guidelines.
The spying was the subject of a series of stories by the AP that revealed the NYPD intelligence division infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups and investigated hundreds. The NYPD is the largest police department in the nation, and Bloomberg has held up its counterterrorism tactics as a model for the rest of the country. The new court motion by the civil rights lawyers refers repeatedly to the AP’s reporting and includes some internal NYPD documents the AP had obtained and published.
The motion focuses on a particular section of the NYPD’s intelligence division known initially as the Demographics Unit and later renamed the Zone Assessment Unit. This unit is at the heart of the NYPD’s spying program, built with help from the CIA. It assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.
Supporters said the Demographics Unit was central to keeping the city safe, though a senior NYPD official testified last year that the unit never generated any leads or triggered a terrorism investigation.
The Handschu guidelines came out of landmark lawsuit the lawyers filed and a subsequent 1985 court settlement that set strict time limits for investigations, imposed rules on the kinds of records police could keep and created a three-person body to oversee such investigations.
The last time civil rights lawyers in the Handshu case filed a motion like this was in November 2005. It was not immediately clear when the judge will make a ruling on the new motion.
+ Top Story
Oprah Winfrey is giving $12 million to a museum being built on Washington's National Mall that will document African-American history, officials said Tuesday. The media mogul and former talk-show host previously gave $1 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture...
It feels like Birmingham finally is emerging from the shadows cast by the ugly racial violence of 1963. Long haunted by black-and-white newsreel footage of the fire hoses and police dogs city leaders turned on blacks demonstrating for civil rights, the city has a new vibe that’s generating buzz...
The video touting Cheerios’ heart-healthy qualities and the brand’s place at the wholesome American breakfast table, which aired and was posted online last week, quickly drew more than 2 million hits on YouTube. But the site was forced to disable viewer comments after responses...
A new poll released Tuesday by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found that the overwhelming majority of black people (86 percent) said they were satisfied with their lives. Nearly 60 percent said they would eventually achieve the American dream...
David "Deacon" Jones, the original sackmaster, has died. The Hall of Fame defensive end, credited with coining the word "sack" for how he knocked down quarterbacks, was 74
The federal government is one of the nation’s largest buyers of advertising, and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters [NABOB] is asking why more of the hundreds of millions in public dollars aren’t going to African-American owned broadcasting outlets.
Attorneys won’t be able to mention Trayvon Martin’s drug use, suspension from school and past fighting during opening statements at the trial of a former neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot the teen, a judge ruled Tuesday.
I have to say that it is one of the great honors of my life to be able to address this gathering here today. I want to thank Dr. Wilson for his outstanding leadership, and the Board of Trustees. We have Congressman Cedric Richmond and Sanford Bishop — both proud alumni of this school...