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posted by martyb on Sunday April 08 2018, @09:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the out-in-the-open dept.

NYPD Pays $1 Million, Vows Surveillance Reforms After Settling with Muslims in New Jersey

The NYPD will pay more than $1 million in legal fees and damages, and pledge to end religious-based surveillance, as part of a settlement with New Jersey Muslims who alleged that police officers crossed the Hudson River in the years after Sept. 11 to monitor their mosques, stores and schools.

The lawsuit followed shocking revelations in the 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press series that the NYPD cast a wide net in its surveillance of Muslims -- even traveling outside New York to photograph license plates parked outside mosques and infiltrate Muslim Student Associations at colleges. The settlement mandates that the NYPD now notify New Jersey authorities, like municipal police and county prosecutors, when operating in their jurisdictions. But it can still conduct investigations across the Hudson River.

Also as part of the settlement, the NYPD confirmed that it dismantled the Demographics Unit that surveilled Muslims, and certain records from the Muslim surveillance operations will be expunged.

This is the third surveillance-related lawsuit that the NYPD has settled. Last year, as part of a settlement in New York, the NYPD barred religious-based surveillance under its so-called Handschu Guidelines and appointed a civilian monitor to oversee investigations of political activity. Its new policies regarding surveillance now extend to New Jersey. The NYPD will also allow the New Jersey plaintiffs to recommend changes to the NYPD's training policies as they pertain to religion and the First Amendment.

Also at Reuters, NYT, and Al Jazeera.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by requerdanos on Sunday April 08 2018, @10:43PM (7 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 08 2018, @10:43PM (#664076) Journal

    The NYPD will [pay damages and] pledge to end religious-based surveillance, as part of a settlement with New Jersey Muslims

    The Muslim people within my circle of friends (some of whom are tired of ignorant prejudice such as when rednecks tell them to "go back to mexico") have never shown any signs that I've picked up on that they want to harm anyone or blow anything up or kill anyone, aside from the usual "I'm angry at so and so" mad-on (as opposed to the "I'm mad at (insert country, group, or planet here)".)

    My contact with cops, on the other hand, has seen them cause great harm by abusing their authority.

    So you can see whose side I am on here.

    *However*

    Some select people from the following groups claim that they are terrorists (or words to that effect) *because* of their membership in, or the beliefs of, the group:
    -(Mostly) white militia members
    -Irish Christians (prod, cath, don't seem to matter)
    -Muslim extremists

    So, maybe it makes sense to look at those, and similar groups, from time to time, and see if maybe there are any nutjobs budding off ready to blow up people, places, or things.

    I mean, when I am looking for a lost shoe, I don't start looking in the attic or in the pool--I look on the floor.

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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday April 09 2018, @12:22AM

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday April 09 2018, @12:22AM (#664095)

    Some select people from the following groups claim that they are terrorists (or words to that effect) *because* of their membership in, or the beliefs of, the group:
    -(Mostly) white militia members
    -Irish Christians (prod, cath, don't seem to matter)
    -Muslim extremists

    They had zero evidence that anybody in any of these mosques was attempting any kind of terrorist anything. They targeted these groups of people because they were Muslim, and "everybody knows" (i.e. stereotype says) that all Muslims are terrorists. Which is explicitly what the First Amendment says is not OK to do, but which they probably thought they'd get away with because Muslims are very much an oppressed minority religion in the US.

    If they had investigated a mosque based on reports that people were, say, using it as a place where they could plan something illegal, that would have been fine. But that wasn't what they did.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday April 09 2018, @01:45AM (1 child)

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Monday April 09 2018, @01:45AM (#664117) Journal

    Well for starters how can a group that lacks any authority get in trouble by abusing it. I am all for religious freedom and an avid supporter of immigration, it keeps this country strong and vital. I do have an issue with some communities that come to America and expect the US to conform to their standards rather than the other way around. Keep your religion, celebrate your heritage, but by you coming to American you become (insert origin/religion here) Americans, not the other way around. I agree with your assertion 98% of the Muslims in the world just want to practice their religion and live their lives quietly and in safety. They don't push their religion off on anyone any more than LDS going door to door, or on their mission to country X to 'save' the locals. The other 2% coincide with the extremists of any religion be it Islam, Fundamental Christian or Extreme Buddhism even.

    https://www.thenation.com/article/buddhist-violence-burma/ [thenation.com]

    --
    For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @02:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @02:32AM (#664149)

      Instead of overtly demanding that the U.S. conform, the LDS set up genealogy websites and are collecting everyone's DNA so they can do the sickest things to it. I got an email from ancestry.com just the other day. Muslims need to take a look at what LDS/Mormons are doing.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Monday April 09 2018, @07:07AM (2 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Monday April 09 2018, @07:07AM (#664267) Journal

    OTOH muslims are mostly good people, like us, which doesn't make islam less of a problem.
    Terrorism is not helping islam, the weapon is the womb.
    Consider islam has once been a minority in every place they eventually controlled. Or just wait and see what happens in places with a higher percentage of muslims.

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday April 09 2018, @01:46PM (1 child)

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 09 2018, @01:46PM (#664403) Journal

      Consider islam has once been a minority in every place they eventually controlled.

      For perspective, consider that this is true also of, for example, Christians.

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Monday April 09 2018, @02:36PM

        by Bot (3902) on Monday April 09 2018, @02:36PM (#664449) Journal

        I did it, in fact it is implicitly part of my point.
        Yes Christians were a minority too.
        MAYBE Christians became a majority somewhere (because declaring the faith does not make you Christian, per matthew 7:22).
        But guess what, where "Christians" were a majority Muslims could grow. Have you witnessed the inverse trend? Maybe Ex Yugoslavia? So they have not been stopped by other Christians?

        --
        Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday April 09 2018, @08:46AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Monday April 09 2018, @08:46AM (#664299) Journal

    Some select people from the following groups claim that they are terrorists (or words to that effect) *because* of their membership in, or the beliefs of, the group

    The problem is the relative sizes of the sets 'people who self-identify as X and are terrorists' and 'people who self-identify as X'. As a percentage of the general population of the USA, more people who self identify as Muslim are terrorists than people who self identify as white (not mutually exclusive categories), but in absolute numbers it's the other way around and the difference isn't so great. The proportion of the population white males ages 18-40 that are terrorists appears to be higher than the number of muslims that are terrorists (and many of them use their skin colour and gender as part of their justification), so should everyone in that group be observed? In all cases, the ratio is about 1:100,000 terrorists:non-terrorists, so you're only slightly better than a random sample of the population if you focus on any of these groups. Worse, the number of terrorists not in these groups is fairly similar to the number in the groups, so if you're immediately discounting people not in one of the groups from your potential list of suspects then you're going to miss something.

    --
    sudo mod me up