Spying on Muslims for Years, NY Police Unit Disbanded

Local Editor

A New York Police Department surveillance unit that spied on Muslim communities, collecting detailed information on their conversations and day-to-day activities was disbanded in the US, according to the department on Wednesday.
The New York Department surveillance unit that spied on Muslim communities called the Demographics Unit had dispatched detectives wearing civilian clothes into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and watch day-to-day activities.

The police mapped communities inside and outside the city, building detailed files on logging where customers in traditional Islamic clothes ate meals and documenting their lunch-counter conversations.

The Demographics Unit also 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.

Furthermore, 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.
Detectives were also told to chat up the employees at Muslim-owned businesses and "gauge sentiment" about America and foreign policy.

The disbandment comes after a federal judge in New Jersey threw out a lawsuit last month brought by several New Jersey Muslims who claimed police illegally targeted them solely because of their religion.
The program was revealed in a series of articles by the Associated Press news agency, which reported that officers had infiltrated Muslim organizations following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

After years of collecting information, however, the police acknowledged that it never generated a lead. Since The Associated Press published documents describing the program in 2011, Muslims and civil rights groups have called for its shutdown.
"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."

Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the disbanded unit was only one part of "a huge, discriminatory surveillance program."
"We look forward to an end to all aspects of the bias-based policing that has stigmatized New York's Muslim communities and done them such great harm," she said.
Civil liberty groups welcomed the disbandment of the Demographics Unit on Wednesday while the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, said the disbandment would allow police more opportunity to "go after the real bad guys."

However, police officials and the former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, had defended the program as vital to anti-terrorism efforts.

Additionally, a New York Times report quoted Stephen Davis, the department's chief spokesman, as saying that the police department was changing its tactics.
"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," he 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," he added.

Until Stolar's case is decided, the police may not destroy any of the Demographic Unit files, he said.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team