The NYPD is facing mounting criticism of its secret surveillance of Muslims across the Northeast, with ACLU chapters and numerous other groups demanding an investigation and New Jersey’s governor accusing the department of arrogantly acting as if “their jurisdiction is the world.”
The intelligence-gathering was detailed recently in a series of stories by The Associated Press, which reported that police monitored mosques and Muslims around the metropolitan area and kept tabs on Muslim student groups at universities in upstate New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The department also sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip with college students.
The tactics have stirred debate over whether the NYPD is trampling on the civil rights of Muslims and illegally engaging in religious and ethnic profiling.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has argued that the NYPD’s actions are legal and necessary in a city under constant threat of another terrorist attack like 9/11 and that police have the right to travel beyond the city limits to do their job.
His office had no comment on the latest criticism, and the NYPD didn’t respond to a request for comment.
On Thursday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie accused the department of ignoring a key lesson of Sept. 11 by not sharing information with New Jersey law enforcement agencies when it conducted surveillance in Newark, N.J. Christie was U.S. attorney for New Jersey in 2007 when the intelligence-gathering occurred, and he said he doesn’t recall being briefed.
“9/11 was not prevented because law enforcement agencies weren’t talking to each other, they were being selfish, they were being provincial, they were being paranoid, they were being arrogant,” Christie said. “I do not want to return to those days.”
Christie said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly wouldn’t want to have to explain himself if something went wrong because of a lack of coordination.
During a radio program Wednesday night, Christie went even further, with some of his harshest criticism yet. He said he didn’t know whether the surveillance program was “born out of arrogance, or out of paranoia, or out of both.” He mocked Kelly as “all-knowing, all-seeing.” And he said the NYPD had a “masters of the universe” mentality.
“They think that their jurisdiction is the world,” he said. “Their jurisdiction is New York City.”
The NYPD has said that it informed Newark officials about the intelligence operation and that Newark police were briefed before and after. New York officials said the NYPD officers were not making arrests or conducting searches in New Jersey, and were thus acting within their authority.
Christie did not take issue with the intelligence-gathering itself, instead faulting the NYPD for what he portrayed as a high-handed attitude and a lack of cooperation.
“I understand we need people doing covert surveillance to protect the people of our state and our region,” the governor said. “No problems with that. My concern is, why can’t you communicate with the people here in New Jersey, with law enforcement here in New Jersey? Are we somehow not trustworthy?”
Similarly, on Thursday, Christie would not weigh in on whether he thought Muslims’ civil rights were violated, saying his attorney general is looking into that.
Christie’s comments drew praise from Muslim leader Aref Assaf, head of the American Arab Forum, based in Paterson, N.J.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
2 Responses
This NBC article only tells part of the story. The Muslim leader, Aref Assaf, was only praising Gov. Christie for criticizing the NYPD. Assaf himself has very dubious connections to the same mosque that the 9/11 conspirators attended in Paterson as well as to the blind sheik Rahman. Gov Christie was not criticizing the intelligence operation (as stated in the article) but rather its not sharing information with N.J.
They should just all get a life! Muslims do terrorist things! What’s Christie’s problem? That they didn’t take out a newspaper ad and let him know? The Newark police knew. The mayor and governor did not need to know. They certainly don’t need to be making the fuss they are. Shame on them! They should be blessing the NYPD!