"Where is the Right to Privacy? It Doesn't Exist if You're a Muslim"

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/muslims-nypd-spying-lawsuit


Muslim protesters kneel down to pray at an event challenging the NYPD's surveillance program.

Sayed Farhaj Hassan began basic training in the US Army the day before 9/11. Two years later, he deployed to Iraq. Then a few months ago, he learned that the New Jersey mosque he had attended for 16 years, Astaana-e-Zehra, had turned up in a New York Police Department document assessing the threat of Iran-sponsored terrorism to New York City.

"I felt violated," says Hassan, who is still an Army reservist. "Everything I signed up to defend in the Army was being thrown away by the New York City Police Department."

Hasan is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleging that the NYPD violated the constitutional rights of New Jersey's Muslim community through a massive CIA-assisted surveillance program, which was first revealed by the Associated Press. Documents released by the AP show that beginning in 2002 the NYPD covertly monitored Muslim neighborhoods, mosques, and businesses. The case is the first to challenge the NYPD's sweeping surveillance program.

The case was brought by California-based Muslim Advocates, a group led by Farhana Khera, a former aide to Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). The suit represents a growing conflict over the legality of post-9/11 security tactics that critics allege amount to racial profiling of Muslim Americans. And the NYPD's sweeping program provides an appropriate test case of law enforcement authority in this arena. While New York City officials like Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said the program was legal and that the NYPD was "following leads" and not profiling on the basis of religion, the AP notes that there is "no indication that criminal leads prompted any of the [NYPD surveillance] reports." The documents themselves contain maps showing the locations of mosques and dossiers on Muslim-owned businesses.