The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said.
NY Times The decision by the nation’s largest police force to shutter the surveillance program represents the first sign that William J. Bratton, the department’s new commissioner, is backing away from some of the post-9/11 intelligence-gathering practices of his predecessor. The move comes as the federal government reconsiders and re-evaluates some of its post-9/11 policies, including the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection.
The Police Department’s tactics, which are the subject of two federal lawsuits, drew criticism from civil rights groups and a senior official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who said they harmed national security by sowing mistrust for law enforcement in Muslim communities.
To many Muslims, the squad, known as the Demographics Unit, was a sign that the police viewed their every action with suspicion. The police mapped communities inside and outside the city, logging where customers in traditional Islamic clothes ate meals and documenting their lunch-counter conversations.
“The Demographics Unit created psychological warfare in our community,” said Linda Sarsour, of the Arab American Association of New York. “Those documents, they showed where we live. That’s the cafe where I eat. That’s where I pray. That’s where I buy my groceries. They were able to see their entire lives on those maps. And it completely messed with the psyche of the community.”
Ms. Sarsour was one of several advocates who met last Wednesday with Mr. Bratton and some of his senior staff members at Police Headquarters. She and others in attendance said the department’s new intelligence chief, John Miller, told them that the police did not need to work covertly to find out where Muslims gather and indicated the department was shutting the unit down.
The Demographics Unit, which dates to 2003 and was renamed the Zone Assessment Unit in recent years, has been largely inactive since Mr. Bratton took over in January, the department’s chief spokesman, Stephen Davis, said. The unit’s detectives were recently reassigned, he said.
“Understanding certain local demographics can be a useful factor when assessing the threat information that comes into New York City virtually on a daily basis,” Mr. Davis said. “In the future, we will gather that information, if necessary, through direct contact between the police precincts and the representatives of the communities they serve.”
The unit was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency officer Lawrence Sanchez, who helped establish it in 2003 while working at the Police Department and while he was still on the spy agency’s payroll.
The goal was to identify the mundane locations where a would-be terrorist could blend into society. Plainclothes detectives looked for “hot spots” of radicalization that might give the police an early warning about terrorist plots. The squad, which typically consisted of about a dozen members, focused on 28 “ancestries of interest.”
Detectives were told to chat up the employees at Muslim-owned businesses and “gauge sentiment” about America and foreign policy. Through maps and photographs, the police noted where Albanian men played chess in the afternoon, where Egyptians watched soccer and where South Asians played cricket.
Mr. Bratton has said that he intends to try to heal rifts between the Police Department and minority communities that have felt alienated as a result of policies pursued during the Bloomberg administration.
The meeting last week put Mr. Bratton in the room with some of his department’s harshest critics.
“This is the first time we’ve felt that comfort sitting with them,” said Ahmad Jaber, who resigned from the Police Department’s Muslim advisory board last year to protest the surveillance tactics. “It’s a new administration, and they are willing to sit with the community and listen to their concerns.”
The Demographics Unit was one aspect of a broad intelligence-gathering effort. In addition, informants infiltrated Muslim student groups on college campuses and collected the names, phone numbers and addresses of those who attended. Analysts trawled college websites and email groups to keep tabs on Muslim scholars and who attended their lectures.
The police also designated entire mosques as suspected “terrorism enterprises,” a label that the police claimed allowed them to collect the license plate numbers of every car in mosque parking lots, videotape worshipers coming and going, and record sermons using informants wearing hidden microphones.
As a candidate, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was “deeply troubled” by the tactic of surveilling mosques. Despite investigations that stretched for years, the Police Department’s efforts never led to charges that a mosque or Islamic organization was itself a terrorist enterprise.
The future of those programs remains unclear. The former police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, has said his efforts were lawful and helped protect the city from terrorist attacks. Last month, a federal judge in New Jersey dismissed a lawsuit over the department’s surveillance there, saying Muslims could not prove they were harmed by the tactics.
De Blasio is not ignorant, he is complicit. That’s the really maddening thing. I’m glad I live in Auckland NZ… our muslims are still fairly low-key although when I see thousands pour out of the mosques, it chills my heart.
mara, you are correct. DeBlasio is not ignorant, he is an admitted socialist and muslim/terrorist sympathizer
What are they doing to my favorite city New York?
Destroying it.
When theory becomes practice, it is no longer “theory”, but a confirmed reality.
They, the “left”, are purposefully hindering the LEO’s in an effort to leave us wide open for attack, furthering the necessity to grow their police-state regime.
Keeping us in perpetual fear justifies the need for more troops, financial allocation and the continued erosion of the constitutional rights as a “free people”. In effect – “let chaos reign but we’ll need more troops, equipment and surveillance to contain them”. They don’t want to “stop” anything, merely control it. Pure evil!!!
Stalin did the same thing in Soviet Russia. Crime was rampant during the 1930s. Stalin and his apparatchiks allowed crime to flourish as it kept the population fearful and it justified giving the state more power. Nothing new going on here.
Now that terrorists have been given a free hand to do their plotting & planning with very little fear of being caught, you can be sure there will be at least one major terrorist attack on NYC – and quite frankly couldn’t happen to a more deserving mob of feckless fucktards. The only caveat being that the coming death, destruction & maiming should be limited to moslems – so they can get their 72 virgins – all who suck up to the religion of pieces and any other left-wing fucktard.
I really hate to remind you, but I predicted this ignorant panderer would be elected Mayor of New York.
The people and the democRAT machine up there ALWAYS pushes, votes for, and elects the worst possible boob in creation.
Nobody would take my bet. If they were as bad at betting as they are at electing, I would be a rich man and they would still have this muslim pandering idiot for their mayor.
Dhimmi deblasio needs to be recalled.
The majority leftist freeloaders in NYC love him. Rob the rich to give even more to the lazy do-nothings.
What a mess, what a mess. SMH I tell you what. I guess they like detroit so much they want to emulate it.
It looks like the muslims are doing all the right things. DeBlasio is their man now. With leadership like this I don’t see how a homeland can be guarded or a war won. A real mind duck for a strategy. Hard to believe.
NYC had better order a train load of chalk for the body outlines. They may as well make NYC a cop free ZONE.
The bomb-plots will multiply times ten as the enemies of freedom discover they are undetected.
New Yorkers will be put at risk of subway and train bombings AND hotel bombings and visitors will avoid New York as a city where you have a high risk of being KILLED BY inbred, braindead, killer zombies whom MAYOR DIBLASIO didn’t want to monitor.
Muslims don’t want equal rights. They want all the rights. And the power to control yours. New York has hit rock Bottom ..I’m looking forward to the day the Muslims stab in the back the politicians that supported them. NY has completely lost it.
I can’t believe they dropped everything. Maybe they’re pretending but have other measures in place.
Spy gadgets are really very tiny these days and can be planted anywhere. Also, there are other municipal associated covert surveillance units that they probably work with.
Hijabed police officers… hum… my religion forbids me from associating with the devil. This is my firm belief therefore I want a non-muslim officer, please.
Finally, it’s time for Giuliani to make a comeback.
Susan, not a chance. DeBlasio has been in bed with the muslims right from the get go. All the anti-terrorism programs that kept this city safe are now gone.
As you once said, you need another major attack. When this will occur, people will awaken and backlash will be serious.
Maybe.
Susan, I doubt very much there will be a backlash against muslims when the next 9/11 occurs. Like muslim deceivers, Tell Mama, in Britain, CAIR DECEIVERS will complain about an increase in attacks against muslims when in reality the attacks will actually be infidels complaining bitterly on the internet about muslim rabid hate and satanic violence and murder.
In our Western countries, there has NEVER been a backlash against muslims for their satanic, barbaric attacks against infidels. The slightest protest against barbaric Islam is quickly PUNISHED by anti-freedom, Islam-adorer ruling elites.
An infidel in Scotland placed a piece of pork on a mosque door in protest. He was jailed for several months.
Vicious persecution is unleashed on desperate Britons who protest against the massive immigration that has transformed Britain into a dangerous place.
http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/the-oppression-of-emma-west-the-politically-correct-end-game-plays-out/ The oppression of Emma West: the politically correct end game plays out by Robert Henderson
In November 2011 Emma West was arrested and subsequently charged for a racially aggravated public order offence (The charges concerned her public denunciation of the effects of mass immigration whilst on a tram in London…she was refused bail when first arrested and was originally remanded for more than a month (she was released after eight days following protests) in the highest security woman’s prison in England…
“There have been threats to burn her house, she has been physically assaulted and beaten to the ground outside her home” It would be interesting to know if her assailant is being prosecuted… http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/the-oppression-of-emma-west-the-politically-correct-end-game-plays-out/
New Yorkers voted de Blasio in, so it’s hard to feel sorry about what’s likely to happen. Elections have consequences, as they say.
This New Yorker didn’t. But I’m outnumbered by leftist entitlement whores.
Bukhari:V4B52N220 “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘I have been made victorious with terror.'”
Another victory for muslims eager to OBEY Quran WAR book commands to wage jihad against hated infidels. New York Infidel leaders want muslims to practice their religion.
Qur’an:8:12 “I shall terrorize the infidels. So wound their bodies and incapacitate
them because they oppose Allah and His Apostle.”
When muslims perpetrate the next mass terror attack in NYC and murder thousands, NYC leaders, Communist Mayor DeBlasio, Obama and PM Cameron will declare “This is not Islam”. Police will be dispatched to protect mosques.
Quran (3:151) – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers”
Muslim imams will be invited to say prayers at an interfaith memorial service. Muslims will demand to build a victory mosque to honor Islam at the Death site. The number of mosques being built will increase greatly. Muslim immigration will also increase enormously. More muslims will be appointed to positions of enormous power in the U.S. government.
And the terror attack will be immediately seized upon to destroy the freedoms of infidel Americans, but not muslims.
BARENAKEDISLAM: Is anyone here surprised? Obama’s NSA snooping EXCLUDED mosques, missed Boston Marathon bombers
And the reason for this? Terror-linked Muslim Brotherhood proxy, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), demanded that spying on mosques be stopped because it hurt the feelings of Muslims… http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/06/13/is-anyone-here-surprised-obamas-nsa-snooping-excluded-mosques-missed-boston-marathon-bombers/
VIDEO: GRAB ONTO the GUN, and the SWORD,and DO YOUR JOB – BOSTON IMAM to MUSLIMS
The Boston Mosque imam who asked Muslims to go out and kill is hugged by Governor Deval Patrick. America, wake up to the enemies within!
“Grab onto the shovel, grab onto the gun, and the sword, don’t be afraid to step out into this world and do your job.”
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and the Imam
“In the future, we will gather that information, if necessary, through direct contact between the police precincts and the representatives of the communities they serve.”
New Yorkers are safe??? Information will be given to the police by muslim leaders???
Quran (9:5) – “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush.”
The police have decided to PRETEND that the Quran and all Islamic teaching and mosques don’t command jihad ! This is how NYC leaders plan to keep New York infidels safe? And they deserve to be paid a salary?
I look forward to another 9/11 on DeBlasio’s watch.
BNI: Me too. Get yourself a few gas masks. Stock up on canned goods also.
I’ve had Israeli gas masks here since 9/11. I live in a condo, no extra storage room.
If mudslums are for de B–S then I am agin the idiot.
I honestly hope if NY is going to be hit with something again it ends up being the Mayor’s Office when he’s there in a conference with his advisers.
Lock up the goats.
figures. what’s it going to take to wake people up?
MORE 9/11’s.
only a matter of time! oh it’s coming no doubt, the idiot’s make it easy for them at every turn! You’re right Bon, that’s what it’s going to take!!
You’ll be getting it. It’s what is needed to wake up the people. The backlash will not be pretty this time.