SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
NYPD Trolled Jails Hoping to Turn Muslims into Informants
'Eventually, the detectives got to the point: Would they work for the police, eavesdropping in Muslim cafes and restaurants, or in mosques?'
May 11, 2014
Despite an announcement last month that the New York City Police Department had disbanded a controversial surveillance unit, the New York Times reports on Sunday that the department has continued to systematically target the city's Muslim communities by recruiting individuals arrested of petty crimes to act as informants for so-called "terrorist investigations."
The Times reviewed stacks of internal reports and spoke with former members of the units involved in the program and learned that "a squad of detectives, known as the Citywide Debriefing Team" was combing the city's jails for newly arrested individuals in order to "invite" them to become police informants.
According to the Times:
The men, all Muslim immigrants, went through similar ordeals: Waiting in a New York station house cell or a lockup facility, expecting to be arraigned, only to be pulled aside and questioned by detectives. The queries were not about the charges against them, but about where they went to mosque and what their prayer habits were. Eventually, the detectives got to the point: Would they work for the police, eavesdropping in Muslim cafes and restaurants, or in mosques?
Even as the NYPD defended the program, saying that it was both "effective" and that the interview were "conversations" not interrogations, the paper notes that "many of those interviewed said that as Muslim immigrants in a post-9/11 world, they felt they had little choice but to cooperate."
As Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said after the shuttering of a separate unit that targeted Muslims last month, the NYPD runs a "huge, discriminatory surveillance program" against the Muslim community of which these separate programs only make up a part. The NYPD, said Shamsi at the time, must go further by ending "all aspects of the bias-based policing that has stigmatized New York's Muslim communities and done them such great harm."
___________________________
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Despite an announcement last month that the New York City Police Department had disbanded a controversial surveillance unit, the New York Times reports on Sunday that the department has continued to systematically target the city's Muslim communities by recruiting individuals arrested of petty crimes to act as informants for so-called "terrorist investigations."
The Times reviewed stacks of internal reports and spoke with former members of the units involved in the program and learned that "a squad of detectives, known as the Citywide Debriefing Team" was combing the city's jails for newly arrested individuals in order to "invite" them to become police informants.
According to the Times:
The men, all Muslim immigrants, went through similar ordeals: Waiting in a New York station house cell or a lockup facility, expecting to be arraigned, only to be pulled aside and questioned by detectives. The queries were not about the charges against them, but about where they went to mosque and what their prayer habits were. Eventually, the detectives got to the point: Would they work for the police, eavesdropping in Muslim cafes and restaurants, or in mosques?
Even as the NYPD defended the program, saying that it was both "effective" and that the interview were "conversations" not interrogations, the paper notes that "many of those interviewed said that as Muslim immigrants in a post-9/11 world, they felt they had little choice but to cooperate."
As Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said after the shuttering of a separate unit that targeted Muslims last month, the NYPD runs a "huge, discriminatory surveillance program" against the Muslim community of which these separate programs only make up a part. The NYPD, said Shamsi at the time, must go further by ending "all aspects of the bias-based policing that has stigmatized New York's Muslim communities and done them such great harm."
___________________________
Despite an announcement last month that the New York City Police Department had disbanded a controversial surveillance unit, the New York Times reports on Sunday that the department has continued to systematically target the city's Muslim communities by recruiting individuals arrested of petty crimes to act as informants for so-called "terrorist investigations."
The Times reviewed stacks of internal reports and spoke with former members of the units involved in the program and learned that "a squad of detectives, known as the Citywide Debriefing Team" was combing the city's jails for newly arrested individuals in order to "invite" them to become police informants.
According to the Times:
The men, all Muslim immigrants, went through similar ordeals: Waiting in a New York station house cell or a lockup facility, expecting to be arraigned, only to be pulled aside and questioned by detectives. The queries were not about the charges against them, but about where they went to mosque and what their prayer habits were. Eventually, the detectives got to the point: Would they work for the police, eavesdropping in Muslim cafes and restaurants, or in mosques?
Even as the NYPD defended the program, saying that it was both "effective" and that the interview were "conversations" not interrogations, the paper notes that "many of those interviewed said that as Muslim immigrants in a post-9/11 world, they felt they had little choice but to cooperate."
As Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said after the shuttering of a separate unit that targeted Muslims last month, the NYPD runs a "huge, discriminatory surveillance program" against the Muslim community of which these separate programs only make up a part. The NYPD, said Shamsi at the time, must go further by ending "all aspects of the bias-based policing that has stigmatized New York's Muslim communities and done them such great harm."
___________________________
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy