Lawsuit claims NYPD targeted Muslims post 9/11

New York: A lawsuit has accused New York police of being discriminatory when it came to surveillance, aiming at Muslims in New Jersey post 9/11. While a federal district court dismissed the suit a year ago, lawyers are now seeking a reversal in appeals court.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued about the constitutional legality of the New York City Police Departments blanket surveillance of Muslims. The case put up before a three-judge panel in Philadelphia on Tuesday, asked to reverse the decision in Hassan v. City of New York.

The panel questioned whether police had any specific leads to justify the surveillance of Muslim businesses, mosques and student groups in New Jersey following 9/11.

The practice went on from 2002 to at least 2012, according to a lawsuit filed by several Muslim groups.

One judge, Jane R. Roth said, “What happened since 9/11 and what happened in Paris the other day suggests that this kind of action may be needed to ferret out terrorists.”

“You’ve got to admit there are a lot of people in this country that (became) prejudiced against Muslims after 9/11.”

“Whether that includes the people who have instituted the surveillance practice in New York City — how can we know at this point?”

The co-counsel for the Muslim groups, Baher Azmy from the Center for Constitutional Rights, said there is no issue with probing serious security threats, “but the question is what means do law enforcements use to investigate. This was a blunderbuss surveillance program based on nothing but suspicion.”  

The surveillance, first exposed in a series of articles by a news agency, said to have been in operation for over a decade, is known to have included spying on 20 mosques, 14 restaurants, 11 retail stores, two grade schools, and two Muslim Student Associations in New Jersey alone. The monitoring included video surveillance, photography, community mapping, and the infiltration of places of worship.

The NYPD also admitted that in more than 10 years of operation, the spy program failed to produce a single lead.

The lawyer for the city, Peter Farrell, however, said there is no policy of targeting Muslims.

When asked by the judges about the allegations of harm noted in the drop in attendance at mosques, Farrell said those injuries “are based on subjective self-imposed fears.”