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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

NYPD Pays $1 Million, Vows Surveillance Reforms After Settling with Muslims in New Jersey [wnyc.org]

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 [pulitzer.org] 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 [ccrjustice.org], 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 [wnyc.org], 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 [reuters.com], NYT [nytimes.com], and Al Jazeera [aljazeera.com].

Original Submission