Posted Thursday, November 10th, 2011 by Najah Farley
New developments in the NYPD Muslim monitoring program
Two months ago, an Associated Press investigation by Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo exposed a number of NYPD surveillance programs, which targeted Muslims using various methods. A former Central Intelligence Agency officer constructed the surveillance programs. The NYPD monitoring programs infiltrated Muslim student groups, conducted surveillance in Muslim neighborhoods and even hired informants to spy on Muslim groups that had partnered with the NYPD to fight terrorism. The most recent revelation is that the NYPD was also keeping a database of everyone who changed his or her name. The name changes, which were gleaned from local court documents, were used to run comprehensive background checks on those individuals whose names sounded Arabic or those individuals who changed their names to Arabic-sounding or Muslim-sounding names.
The program’s targeting of individuals who changed their names to Arabic names or Arabic-sounding names highlights the overlap between traditional civil rights issues and the post-9-11 concerns regarding civil liberties and national security. Amongst African-American Muslims, name changes used to be relatively frequent, due to the legacy of Malcolm X, who changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964. Given this history, it appears that African American Muslims, as a large proportion of the Muslim population in the United States, would have been the primary targets of this particular program. In the wake of this exposé, there is even more room for coordination and coalition building between main-line civil rights organizations, civil liberties organizations and Muslim organizations. Such coalition building would be useful to draw attention to the NYPD tactics. Due to the Patriot Act and other similar measures, legal remedies are destined to be less fruitful, but more public attention and political pressure focused on this issue could only help to force authorities to disband the program. For example, although the NYPD monitoring program was named or described as counter-terrorism measures, the policies mirror the stop & frisk policies and other criticized tactics that were used to target African-American men to reduce crime. However, in practice, the stop & frisk program did little to reduce crime rate and instead, I would argue, simply increased mistrust and enmity between minority communities and the NYPD. Both of these programs used investigation tactics and racial/ethnic profiles in ways that encroached on the civil liberties of everyday citizens in order to promote safety–with little to no evidence that the tactics were useful.
New York Democratic state senators called for the state attorney general to investigate the program, and the CIA announced an inspector general investigation into the agency’s partnership with the NYPD. It is unclear what legal challenges can be used to disband the program. However, public attention to the program and its widespread nature has been lacking and more needs to be done. The broad scale of this program simply underscores the fact that the counter-terrorism tactics being used ten years after 9-11 are not limited to those of a particular ethnic group or country of origin, but includes anyone who is perceived as being a member of the same ethnic group or religion of a person who committed a terrorist act at some point – even members of an anti-terrorism coalition with the NYPD itself. These new developments should motivate all of us.
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The United States government has the responsiblity to protect her citizens. It should not be a surprise that the government has implemented programs aimed at identifying and disrupting organizations and people who are adverse to the American way of life and who would otherwise seek to harm her people.
Often times too much attention is given for political correctness without dealing with the underlying issues. The government has gone after all types of organizations which seek to hurt her people. KKK, BPP, and also people and organizations whose radical Islamic views would condone violence in a struggle against the United States. It is not discrimination to protect yourself and your country from an organization or people whose unifying principle is religion but who hide behind it and plot the nation’s destruction.
I want to be safe from those who would harm me because of where I was born or what God I choose to serve. I can only hope and support the efforts of those folks in our government agencies who place their own lives on the line each day for all of us against all our enemies, foreign and domestic.
Thank you for the comment JJ. I agree that the U.S. has the responsibility to protect her citizens. However, a key part of that protection is the protection of the fundamental rights that we all hold in high esteem. The government’s role has to toe the line between protection and having a society where minorities are not persecuted or freedom of speech/assembly, etc. are curtailed. If the NYPD and other police agencies are tracking and spying on citizens, based on their membership in a minority group, how are they protecting their citizens? The Muslims in NYC are citizens too, but their protection is less important than the protection of the non-Muslim citizens? Also, I would argue that these tactics are not effective. Surveillance of all Muslims in NYC, in particular, those who have changed their names at some point does not accomplish the goal of stopping terrorism. There is no evidence that any of those people have “radical Islamic views.” Perhaps if these tactics were targeted towards those who have been identified as a criminal element, that would be acceptable. But, as it stands, the tactics are broadly instituted against a minority community, under the banner of national security in, what I would argue, is a discriminatory manner.