AP: CIA And NYPD Team Up To Covertly Spy On Muslims

[Formaldehyde]

I don't think it really matters what they think... blame it on the 112th Congress.

I think they likely have a very good idea of what is considered to be legal and what is not. As the article pointed out, CAIR has already asked the Justice Department to investigate any wrongdoing.

Huff Post: NYPD: CIA Officer Works At Department (VIDEO)

On Wednesday, the Justice Department said it will review a request by a Muslim advocacy group to investigate.

"These revelations send the message to American Muslims that they are being viewed as a suspect community and that their constitutional rights may be violated with impunity," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which asked for the investigation. "The Justice Department must initiate an immediate investigation of the civil rights implications of this spy program and the legality of its links to the CIA."

Some Muslim community leaders in New York aren't satisfied. They have complained about aggressive tactics the department uses to collect intelligence and about a video, "The Third Jihad," shown earlier this year to some members of the NYPD during a training session. Kelly, the police commissioner, explained in a letter in March that the film was not part of the department's training program and said it was shown in the background while members of the NYPD were filling out administrative paperwork before a training session.

The video includes images of terror attacks, Osama bin Laden and U.S. Muslim leaders praising the 2001 hijackers, news reports about terror plots and experts talking about the threat of radical Islam. Muslim leaders were outraged by the film because they said it was anti-Islam.

"The NYPD's use of certain intelligence tactics in houses of worship – such as paid informants, agent provocateurs and mosque surveillance – are not only misleading as security measures but compromise the duty of the law enforcement acting under the color of state law," Muslim community leader Aisha Al-Adawiya wrote in a July 22 letter to Kelly.

Abridged version of The Third Jihad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Jihad

James Davis, an evangelical Christian and the Religion reporter for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, said the documentary takes "the same track taken by the Red Scare purveyors in the 1950s and by church leaders talking about the "new age" in the 1980s." [12]

[edit]NYPD controversy

There has been a controversy over the use of the video, which some have criticized as anti-Muslim, in required counter-terrorism training courses by the New York City Police Department. The Voice reported that an outside consulting film was responsible for bringing "The Third Jihad" into the NYPD, but the consultant was not identified. One cop who saw the movie at the training facility said: "After it was over, I was thinking, 'What was that? It was so ridiculously one-sided. It just made Muslims look like the enemy. It was straight propaganda". [13]

Deputy NYPD commissioner Paul Browne, who initially told the Voice that the film had never been shown to officers, was reported to have said after the disclosure that it was a "wacky movie" that should never have been shown to officers. "It was reviewed and found to be inappropriate," he said. However, Browne revised his statement and said the film was shown "a couple of times when officers were filling out paperwork before the actual coursework began". However, The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), one of the movie's primary targets, says it received a complaint from a police cadet about the film last summer, suggesting it may have been shown much more frequently, and for a longer period, than the NYPD claims. [13][14][15]

It is just more fear mongering, and this time it is ironically being done by an American Muslim doctor.

 

[Theige]

According the the article, and specifically stated in the first paragraph of of the OP, the CIA did indeed engage in spying in NYC by providing "rakers". They also directly provided management-level expertise in the police department under the guise of a CIA manager being on "sabbatical" who is apparently still there. The CIA has been intimately involved in the daily operations of the NYPD. Previously, an ex-CIA operative was providing this function, and he was the one who directly involved the CIA in NYPD operations on a day-to-day basis.

The rakers being employed by the CIA was asserted only by you in the OP. It was not asserted in the article.

The article says the NYPD was far more suited for this role than the FBI, having many officers who grew up in the very neighborhoods they were then selected to patrol, or "rake."

The NYPD hired a CIA officer, experienced in information gathering, to help them create their intelligence gathering capabilities. That doesn't mean "The CIA has been intimately involved in the daily operations of the NYPD." That assertion is only made by you as well, not the article.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

"Barking up the wrong tree"

I think it would have been more feasible to create a stand-alone Congressional committee on this particular situation, and not go directly to the Justice Department because they have no "say" on what the CIA can or cannot do.

It is clearly an act of an infiltration of the CIA into the NYPD. If that make any sense.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The rakers being employed by the CIA was asserted only by you in the OP. It was not asserted in the article.

The article says the NYPD was far more suited for this role than the FBI, having many officers who grew up in the very neighborhoods they were then selected to patrol, or "rake."

Hmm. That's odd. The AP article in the St. Pete Times this morning, which I assumes was an excerpt of this one, stated:

The CIA is prohibited from spying on Americans. But in a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domoestic spying, the CIA dispatched undecover officers known as "rakers" into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program.

The NYPD hired a CIA officer, experienced in information gathering, to help them create their intelligence gathering capabilities. That doesn't mean "The CIA has been intimately involved in the daily operations of the NYPD." That assertion is only made by you as well, not the article.

From the article in the OP:

Among Cohen's earliest moves at the NYPD was making a request of his old colleagues at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. He needed someone to help build this new operation, someone with experience and clout and, most important, someone who had access to the latest intelligence so the NYPD wouldn't have to rely on the FBI to dole out information.

CIA Director George Tenet responded by tapping Larry Sanchez, a respected veteran who had served as a CIA official inside the United Nations. Often, when the CIA places someone on temporary assignment, the other agency picks up the tab. In this case, three former intelligence officials said, Tenet kept Sanchez on the CIA payroll.

When he arrived in New York in March 2002, Sanchez had offices at both the NYPD and the CIA's station in New York, one former official said. Sanchez interviewed police officers for newly defined intelligence jobs. He guided and mentored officers, schooling them in the art of gathering information. He also directed their efforts, another said.

There had never been an arrangement like it, and some senior CIA officials soon began questioning whether Tenet was allowing Sanchez to operate on both sides of the wall that's supposed to keep the CIA out of the domestic intelligence business.

"It should not be a surprise to anyone that, after 9/11, the Central Intelligence Agency stepped up its cooperation with law enforcement on counterterrorism issues or that some of that increased cooperation was in New York, the site of ground zero," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said.

The informant division was so important to the NYPD that Cohen persuaded his former colleagues to train a detective, Steve Pinkall, at the CIA's training center at the Farm. Pinkall, who had an intelligence background as a Marine, was given an unusual temporary assignment at CIA headquarters, officials said. He took the field tradecraft course alongside future CIA spies then returned to New York to run investigations.

"We found that helpful, for NYPD personnel to be exposed to the tradecraft," Browne said.

The idea troubled senior FBI officials, who saw it as the NYPD and CIA blurring the lines between police work and spying, in which undercover officers regularly break the laws of foreign governments. The arrangement even made its way to FBI Director Robert Mueller, two former senior FBI officials said, but the training was already under way and Mueller did not press the issue.

Last month, the CIA deepened its NYPD ties even further. It sent one of its most experienced operatives, a former station chief in two Middle Eastern countries, to work out of police headquarters as Cohen's special assistant while on the CIA payroll. Current and former U.S. officials acknowledge it's unusual but said it's the kind of collaboration Americans expect after 9/11.

Officials said revealing the CIA officer's name would jeopardize national security. The arrangement was described as a sabbatical. He is a member of the agency's senior management, but officials said he was sent to the municipal police department to get management experience.

At the NYPD, he works undercover in the senior ranks of the intelligence division. Officials are adamant that he is not involved in actual intelligence-gathering.

The CIA has apparently been extremely intimately involved in the NYPD effort, and they continue to be so. The mayor even just confirmed the CIA officer on "sabbatical" is still there, apparently still doing undercover work.

 

[Theige]

It is clearly an act of an infiltration of the CIA into the NYPD. If that make any sense.

No, it is not an "infiltration."

It is the NYPD enhancing it's counter-terrorism capabilities, and hiring a member of the CIA to do so.

I applaud the increased cooperation between government agencies to protect America's largest city, and my current home.

Hmm. That's odd. The AP article in the St. Pete Times this morning, which I assumes was an excerpt of this one, stated:

That line does not appear in the AP article you quoted in the OP.

Officials from the CIA, FBI, and other local and federal law enforcement agencies often leave one agency to work at another on a temporary basis. This isn't new.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That line does not appear in the AP article you quoted in the OP.

I know it doesn't. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding on the part of the St Pete Times. Or perhaps AP has changed the story. Or perhaps at least some of the "rakers" were indeed CIA operatives. This is a new story and further details will likely emerge.

Officials from the CIA, FBI, and other local and federal law enforcement agencies often leave one agency to work at another on a temporary basis. This isn't new.

Do they work "undercover" while being there? Do senior CIA management officials transfer to city police departments to ostensibly train? Does the head of the CIA often assign a senior official to the NYPD where he maintains offices at both the NYPD and the local CIA headquarters, while being directly involved in the operations of the NYPD?

I think it is very clear that if the AP story is accurate that the CIA has indeed been intimately involved in the affairs of the NYPD.

 

[Rashiminos]

I would have gone with "AP: CIA and NYPD Team Up To Covertly Spy on Americans, World"

 

[EnglishEdward]

IMHO all the monitoring they are doing in New York is better
than the failed policy of dropping bombs on people abroad.

Remember 911 occurred because of a failure of internal monitoring.

 

[Theige]

IMHO all the monitoring they are doing in New York is better
than the failed policy of dropping bombs on people abroad.

Remember 911 occurred because of a failure of internal monitoring.

Indeed.

I'm quite sure the vast majority of the muslim community in New York wants to work with the NYPD to find those amongst them (should they exist) who may be planning attacks against civilians in their own city.

I'm also quite sure muslim leaders in New York have already been doing so for the last decade.

 

[MobBoss]

According the the article, and specifically stated in the first paragraph of of the OP, the CIA did indeed engage in spying in NYC by providing "rakers".

You misread your own article. It clearly says the 'department' put out the 'rakers' not the CIA....

The part your referring to:

The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing.

Pertinent word highlighted. The 'department' is referring to the NYPD...not the CIA.

I read a bit further now, just to see how accurate you have been in how you portray this story. It turns out we are only talking about 1 or two individuals and thats it. A single CIA agent is helping the NYPD develop their investigative team. Nothing wrong with that. I do agree it creates the opportunity for a law to be broken, but what is listed in the OP links doesnt indicate that any law HAS been broken. And FWIW, I think our law enforcement and investigative bodys sharing experience and technique is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'm quite sure the vast majority of the muslim community in New York wants to work with the NYPD to find those amongst them (should they exist) who may be planning attacks against civilians in their own city.

I'm also quite sure muslim leaders in New York have already been doing so for the last decade.

I really don't think they enjoy being profiled and treated like terrorists, while having their constitutional rights deliberately violated by their own police department. From the article above:

"These revelations send the message to American Muslims that they are being viewed as a suspect community and that their constitutional rights may be violated with impunity," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which asked for the investigation. "The Justice Department must initiate an immediate investigation of the civil rights implications of this spy program and the legality of its links to the CIA."

"The NYPD's use of certain intelligence tactics in houses of worship – such as paid informants, agent provocateurs and mosque surveillance – are not only misleading as security measures but compromise the duty of the law enforcement acting under the color of state law," Muslim community leader Aisha Al-Adawiya wrote in a July 22 letter to Kelly.

It appears they feel just the opposite about being treated like they are all guilty of some crime, which they clearly not only did not commit, but which they vilify as much as any other Americans do.

You misread your own article. It clearly says the 'department' put out the 'rakers' not the CIA....

That is addressed immediately above in posts #24 and #26.

 

[Theige]

It would seem the St. Pete Times has mis-quoted the AP article, so I don't know why you keep posting it.

As to whether or not civil liberties are being violated, that is clearly up for debate, and an investigation may possibly be needed.

I also highly doubt any leaders who have been working with the NYPD will come forward and speak publicly, fearing a backlash.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It doesn't seem like any sort of debate to me. Nobody enjoys having their constitutional rights trampled by the authorities over fear of a largely non-existent threat fueled by blatant xenophobia and Islamophobia. And the Muslim leaders have made this quite clear numerous times in the past, as they are doing once again.

 

[Theige]

It doesn't seem like any sort of debate to me. Nobody enjoys having their constitutional rights trampled by the authorities over fear of a largely non-existent threat fueled by blatant xenophobia and Islamophobia. And the Muslim leaders have made this quite clear numerous times in the past, as they are doing once again.

Non-existent?

Why do you choose to engage in discussion on topics in which you are so utterly clueless?

Moderator Action: Please be more civil.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Formaldehyde]

How many NYC Muslims were responsible for 9/11? The only local terrorism was in 1993 which involved six individuals and resulted in a handful of deaths. It was a simple crime which was handled by the police in a simple and very competent manner. I would certainly call that "largely non-existent" compared to the massive overreaction 9/11 has caused and continues to do so.

Muslims in NYC and much of the rest of the world have been persecuted ever since for the acts of a handful of criminals, and the religion of Islam continues to be blamed and vilified by many. These apparent events finally disclosed by the AP are yet more examples of that blatant discrimination.

 

[Theige]

There have been multiple home-grown plots which were either discovered and foiled by law enforcement or failed due to incompetence in the last 10 years.

I know I know, they were entrapped by law enforcement, except the courts ruled that they weren't

 

[Formaldehyde]

Of course there have been. If there weren't, there would be no possible way to rationalize all this fear and hatred of fellow Americans who feel the same way about 9/11 as nearly every American does. How else can the apparent profiling and deprivation of constitutional rights of so many loyal Americans be explained?

Statement Opposing NYPD-CIA Spying on Muslim-Americans

By The Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition

(New York, NY, August 25, 2011) — The Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC) is deeply troubled by the news of the New York City Police Department’s collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on American Muslim communities. The reporting suggests that the CIA may be violating the prohibition on domestic spying. Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s insistence otherwise, it is clear that the NYPD is spying on entire communities without any particular suspicion of criminal activity. Community-based surveillance falls well beyond the purview of even the NYPD’s broad preventative mandate.

From growing reliance on unsubstantiated and discriminatory theories about radicalization, to revelations about law enforcement’s use of Islamophobic training materials, to a number of reports documenting government informants literally encouraging and devising terrorist plots, there is a growing body of evidence to confirm what Muslim communities have been long been saying: the NYPD and FBI are engaging in blatant religious, racial, and national origin profiling and broad- based surveillance of Muslim communities, absent suspicion of criminal activity. The FBI’s own guidelines authorize the agency to undertake “assessments” prior to any indication of criminal activity. Now every American must ask about the role of the CIA in these operations.

Together, these practices paint a dangerous picture of the ways in which law enforcement engages with Muslim communities under the banner of national security. These McCarthyite spying techniques threaten the civil rights of all Americans, and deepen the long-existing rifts between communities of color and police in the United States.

Since 2007 MACLC has raised concerns about NYPD policies that encourage police officers to spy on Muslim communities when there is no indication of wrongdoing. Despite MACLC’s best efforts, the NYPD has refused to engage meaningfully with those that draw attention to problems with its policies. We believe the time has come for this issue to be taken up more broadly.

MACLC calls on:

• the New York City Council to investigate and oversee the NYPD’s operations, as well as a City Comptroller Audit;
• the Obama Administration to initiate a federal investigation into the extent to which the CIA has engaged in domestic spying within the United States, in violation of law and its manadate;
• Congress and the New York State Senate to hold hearings into the NYPD’s, FBI’s, and CIA’s surveillance and policing practices in Muslim communities with a focus on the role of informants;
• Congress and New York State Senate to pass enforceable anti-racial profiling legislation;
• NYPD and the Department of Justice to revise their internal guidelines to disallow the use of surveillance and informants absent suspicion of specific criminal activity.

MACLC also calls on the civil liberties community and civil society to send a message to the NYPD and Mayor Bloomberg that the public has not granted them a mandate for this surveillance operation.

 

[MobBoss]

It doesn't seem like any sort of debate to me. Nobody enjoys having their constitutional rights trampled by the authorities over fear of a largely non-existent threat fueled by blatant xenophobia and Islamophobia. And the Muslim leaders have made this quite clear numerous times in the past, as they are doing once again.

What rights are being trampled on again?

Seriously, why do you seem to have a problem with an investigation when its been proven time and time again over the last decade that such investigations have indeed helped prevent terrorist attacks and support from within the USA?

I dont see how one can draw a blind eye to how many terrorist supporters/terrorist friendly situations have been revealed over the last 10 years and say there isnt an issue there.

 

[IglooDame]

It's not a form of racism or prejudice if law enforcement agencies have a cause for concern -- they do. Radical Islam exists in this world, and it exists in America. Just as other radical movements should be targeted, attending a religious sermon to check what's going on is not The Party checking in to brainwash people.

Goes along with not driving through certain city blocks at night -- it's a cause for concern.

Radical Christianity exists in this world (and America) too. The NYPD should therefore be monitoring all Christian and Muslim worship sites in NYC. Jewish sites too, just in case. Also, wherever those sneaky bastard atheists are meeting up as well.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Radical Christianity exists in this world (and America) too. The NYPD should therefore be monitoring all Christian and Muslim worship sites in NYC. Jewish sites too, just in case. Also, wherever those sneaky bastard atheists are meeting up as well.

Don't forget any activists or protesters, as the AP articled pointed out:

Since 1985, the NYPD had operated under a federal court order limiting the tactics it could use to gather intelligence. During the 1960s and 1970s, the department had used informants and undercover officers to infiltrate anti-war protest groups and other activists without any reason to suspect criminal behavior.

To settle a lawsuit, the department agreed to follow guidelines that required "specific information" of criminal activity before police could monitor political activity.

The department clashed with civil rights groups most publicly after Cohen's undercover officers infiltrated anti-war groups before the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. A lawsuit over that program continues today.

During the convention, when protesters were arrested, police asked a list of questions which, according to court documents, included: "What are your political affiliations?" ''Do you do any kind of political work?" and "Do you hate George W. Bush?"

"At the end of the day, it's pure and simple a rogue domestic surveillance operation," said Christopher Dunn, a New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer involved in the convention lawsuit.

As you pointed out earlier, there are far more victims of these "McCarthyite" tactics than just Muslims. They are using the same broad brush to paint numerous groups as being potential terrorists, when the truth is that there are only a handful of such individuals in the US, most of whom never seem to actually engage in or even plan terrorist activities unless prodded to do so by the government informants themselves.

But many in the US don't seem to mind at all giving up liberty in the pursuit of security.

Hosting a reception for members of New York City's Muslim communities in his mansion on Tuesday night, Mayor Michael Bloomberg eloquently described Muslims as an inalienable part of our great city's fabric. By Wednesday morning, however, many of us who attended that reception would have been forgiven for thinking that we actually lived in a nightmarish American avatar of Kim Jong-Il's Korea.

Indeed, an extensive investigation by the Associated Press raises alarming questions about the NYPD and CIA, hand in hand, breaching some of the most important bulwarks of an open and free society. Through a clandestine programme, operating without meaningful oversight and often without jurisdiction, NYPD and embedded CIA officers appear to have staged what can only be described as an end-run of staggering scope around legal strictures proscribing ethnic profiling by the government, limiting its ability to monitor constitutionally-protected activity, and prohibiting our foreign intelligence service from spying at home.

While "mosque crawlers" monitored religious sermons, so-called "rakers" engaged in "human mapping" of minority communities, neighbourhoods, cafes, bars, nightclubs, and bookstores. Police indiscriminately scrutinised taxi drivers and food cart vendors, because Muslims are well represented in these professions. The authorities also aggressively policed and prosecuted minor traffic violations in order to pressure members of targeted Muslim communities to become spies. New Yorkers who, but for their apparent ethnic origin or religious affiliation, would not even have been stopped, were singled out for arrest and questioning in an effort to turn them into informants.

The limits our laws place on our government are there for a reason. As a society, we do not want our government to spy on entire communities nor do we want individuals singled out on the basis of race or religion. Similarly, our CIA spies are trained to break laws and disregard rights. Our laws allow them to do that only abroad, not at home.

That the boundaries have been overstepped sadly comes as no surprise to many Muslim, Arab and South Asian Americans. Those communities have been decrying blanket surveillance and infiltration for years. The outrageous revelations should come as no surprise to attentive observers, either.

Recall the disturbing statements by Larry Sanchez, the senior CIA officer seconded to the NYPD as part of this programme. Testifying before the Senate in 2007, Sanchez explained that the secret to the NYPD's approach was viewing constitutionally-protected activity, including the practise of religion, as a potential precursor to terrorism. Setting the stage for the NYPD's massive fishing expedition was a 2002 federal court order paring down restrictions on the police's ability to infiltrate communities and monitor protected activity without any concrete suspicion of actual criminal conduct.

With these most recent revelations confirming their very worst fears, the breakdown in trust between Muslim New Yorkers and their police department may well be complete and irreversible. Notwithstanding the Mayor's rhetoric regarding tolerance and partnership, people in these communities now know that the police views them as fair game and that every aspect of normal participation in community life is exposed to surveillance. Seeing as census data was reportedly used in the mapping effort, they may no longer even wish to speak to census workers - let alone law enforcement. That the programme was modelled on how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank casts the NYPD in the unfortunate role of brutal occupying force and the areas where Muslim New Yorkers live as occupied, foreign territory.

From politicians and officials, the communities that have been targeted and surveilled through these covert measures deserve concrete responses. Community relations dinners, awards ceremonies, and cultural sensitivity briefings will not begin to appease the concerns confirmed by these revelations. In order to heal this rift, the City needs to commit to meaningful dialogue with a broad and representative cross-section of community organisations and activists about issues such as infiltration, surveillance and policing.

The City Council, as the NYPD's primary watchdog, should publicly probe these revelations. The City Comptroller's office should exercise its authority to audit this intelligence unit. And, finally, at the federal level, the Department of Justice and Congress, which bankrolls city police activity to a large extent, should investigate and hold hearings regarding this potentially grave breach of federal laws that protect civil rights, ban racial profiling, and prohibit domestic intelligence gathering by the CIA.

Anything less, and we risk forfeiting our standing in the eyes of people of conscience here and abroad as a city that welcomes all and as a country where the rule of law prevails and protects even our least popular minorities.

------------------------------------------

Ramzi Kassem is Associate Professor of Law at the City University of New York. He supervises the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project, which works to address the unmet legal needs of Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and other communities in New York City that are particularly affected by national security and counterterrorism policies and practices.

Terrorism is a minor problem in the US which has been blown all out of proportion by overreaction to 9/11. It has caused a vast bureaucratic infrastructure to be built which costs untold billions of dollars, and which compromises the constitutional rights of many of its loyal citizens. It is now being used as an excuse to continue to monitor political groups which have fallen under illegal scrutiny in the past. But the primary victims are now Muslims, whose religion continues to be vilified by Islamophobic and xenophobic individuals in these organizations.