from Europe News:
Why Muslim Student Group Concerned the NYPD
the Algemeiner 28 February 2012
By Steven Emerson
The Muslim community expressed its outrage this week over a New York Police Department surveillance report from 2006 that the Associated Press reported on Monday. The report disclosed that the NYPD monitored Muslim Students Association (MSA) chapters in the Northeast. The outrage, centered on the perceived violation of privacy, is based on an incorrect presumption that law enforcement had no cause for concern with the MSA.
The organization’s history with radical dogma, convicted terrorists and radicalized alumni tell a different story.
NYPD officials visited websites and forums of different MSAs and noted the posted information, all of which was in the public domain. No one hacked into any email accounts or sites as part of the surveillance. A separate story reports that an undercover officer attended a rafting trip with more than a dozen MSA members.
But NYPD officials say critics are off base when they claim the department did something wrong.
"There is no constitutional prohibition against a police department collecting information,” city senior counsel Peter Farrell told reporters Thursday.
"What’s unconstitutional is if they then use that information to chill someone’s First Amendment rights or to impose harm on them.”
The AP report chronicles different events that some MSAs held and speakers that chapters hosted on campus and provides some lists of event attendees. The surveillance was intended to track any potential radical speakers or behaviors of the different chapters or individual members.
The report lists six different incidents of monitoring in 2006 at the University of Buffalo, New York University, and Rutgers University. It also lists 12 other MSAs that were tracked, but did not provide "significant information posted to their web sites, forums, blogs and groups.”
"Some of the most dangerous Western Al Qaeda-linked/inspired terrorists since 9/11 were radicalized and/or recruited at universities in MSAs,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said as an explanation for the surveillance. "We were focused on radicalization and/or recruitment, specifically by groups like Al Muhajiroun, Islamic Thinkers Society, Revolution Muslim and others.”
Criticism of the NYPD surveillance has been swift.
"We believe that the NYPD clearly overstepped its boundaries when it began spying on average American Muslim college students who were simply taking whitewater rafting trips or innocently participating in school activities at their college or university campus,” said MSA National President Zahir Latheef.
"University officials may be the last line of defense for Muslim students whose rights were apparently violated by the clearly unconstitutional — and possibly illegal — tactics used by the NYPD,” Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper said. "The NYPD continues to act as if it is somehow above the law that governs all other individuals and institutions.”
Cyrus McGoldrick of CAIR- NY said, "It’s very clear that this is not about police work this is about monitoring people based on ideology.”
"They’re just going out and casting a wide net around a whole community, so they’re criminalizing in a way a whole community based on their religion,” said CAIR-Connecticut Director Mongi Dhaouadi.
The Rutgers MSA called on the community to "openly condemn the clear violations of the NYPD, who conducted illegitimate profiling outside of their jurisdiction and breached the constitutional rights of an individual.”
Leaders Found Trouble
The NYPD has a duty to protect New York City from terrorist attacks. And MSA leaders and members have been convicted of terrorist activities and plots.
The list is extensive, but among the MSA alumni who went on to terrorist involvement are:
Anwar al-Awlaki, an influential American-born al-Qaida cleric who recruited a series of homegrown jihadists before being killed by a U.S. drone strike;
Aafia Siddiqui, convicted of attempted murder and assault on U.S. officers and employees in Afghanistan;
Zachary Chesser, convicted of attempting to provide material support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab and soliciting attacks on "South Park” producers for an episode in which the prophet Muhammad was shown in a bear suit;
Jesse Morton, convicted with Chesser of threatening the South Park producers with murder; (...)
Posted February 28th, 2012 by pk
Why Muslim Student Group Concerned the NYPD
the Algemeiner 28 February 2012
By Steven Emerson
The Muslim community expressed its outrage this week over a New York Police Department surveillance report from 2006 that the Associated Press reported on Monday. The report disclosed that the NYPD monitored Muslim Students Association (MSA) chapters in the Northeast. The outrage, centered on the perceived violation of privacy, is based on an incorrect presumption that law enforcement had no cause for concern with the MSA.
The organization’s history with radical dogma, convicted terrorists and radicalized alumni tell a different story.
NYPD officials visited websites and forums of different MSAs and noted the posted information, all of which was in the public domain. No one hacked into any email accounts or sites as part of the surveillance. A separate story reports that an undercover officer attended a rafting trip with more than a dozen MSA members.
But NYPD officials say critics are off base when they claim the department did something wrong.
"There is no constitutional prohibition against a police department collecting information,” city senior counsel Peter Farrell told reporters Thursday.
"What’s unconstitutional is if they then use that information to chill someone’s First Amendment rights or to impose harm on them.”
The AP report chronicles different events that some MSAs held and speakers that chapters hosted on campus and provides some lists of event attendees. The surveillance was intended to track any potential radical speakers or behaviors of the different chapters or individual members.
The report lists six different incidents of monitoring in 2006 at the University of Buffalo, New York University, and Rutgers University. It also lists 12 other MSAs that were tracked, but did not provide "significant information posted to their web sites, forums, blogs and groups.”
"Some of the most dangerous Western Al Qaeda-linked/inspired terrorists since 9/11 were radicalized and/or recruited at universities in MSAs,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said as an explanation for the surveillance. "We were focused on radicalization and/or recruitment, specifically by groups like Al Muhajiroun, Islamic Thinkers Society, Revolution Muslim and others.”
Criticism of the NYPD surveillance has been swift.
"We believe that the NYPD clearly overstepped its boundaries when it began spying on average American Muslim college students who were simply taking whitewater rafting trips or innocently participating in school activities at their college or university campus,” said MSA National President Zahir Latheef.
"University officials may be the last line of defense for Muslim students whose rights were apparently violated by the clearly unconstitutional — and possibly illegal — tactics used by the NYPD,” Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper said. "The NYPD continues to act as if it is somehow above the law that governs all other individuals and institutions.”
Cyrus McGoldrick of CAIR- NY said, "It’s very clear that this is not about police work this is about monitoring people based on ideology.”
"They’re just going out and casting a wide net around a whole community, so they’re criminalizing in a way a whole community based on their religion,” said CAIR-Connecticut Director Mongi Dhaouadi.
The Rutgers MSA called on the community to "openly condemn the clear violations of the NYPD, who conducted illegitimate profiling outside of their jurisdiction and breached the constitutional rights of an individual.”
Leaders Found Trouble
The NYPD has a duty to protect New York City from terrorist attacks. And MSA leaders and members have been convicted of terrorist activities and plots.
The list is extensive, but among the MSA alumni who went on to terrorist involvement are:
Anwar al-Awlaki, an influential American-born al-Qaida cleric who recruited a series of homegrown jihadists before being killed by a U.S. drone strike;
Aafia Siddiqui, convicted of attempted murder and assault on U.S. officers and employees in Afghanistan;
Zachary Chesser, convicted of attempting to provide material support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab and soliciting attacks on "South Park” producers for an episode in which the prophet Muhammad was shown in a bear suit;
Jesse Morton, convicted with Chesser of threatening the South Park producers with murder; (...)
Posted February 28th, 2012 by pk
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