A civil rights law suit was filed this past Wednesday in federal court against the New York City Police Department. It claims the legal surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey is unconstitutional because it “targets Muslims” strictly based on their religion.
by Gadi Adelman
A law suit, ‘Hassan v. The City of New York’, was filed in United States District Court on June 6, 2012 by Muslim Advocates of San Francisco and the Law Offices of Bhalla & Cho, LLC of Jersey City, New Jersey on behalf of Muslim individuals, organizations and businesses who claim they are been singled out for surveillance only based on their religion.
I obtained a copy of the 25-page complaint and it can be viewed on my website here: Hassan V. NYC.
The suit claims violations of the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause through discrimination. They seek monetary damages but the main goal is to put an end to the surveillance, which they claim is ongoing.
According to the compliant, back in 2002, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the NYPD started watching entire neighborhoods where Muslims lived in Newark and other towns. The plaintiffs (Muslims) say that the NYPD also infiltrated Muslim organizations and mosques with undercover officers and informants. They claim that people who were the subject of the surveillance were chosen not because of any suspicion of wrongdoing, but strictly because of their religion.
The plaintiffs named are three individuals: Syed Farhaj Hassan, Moiz Mohammed and Jane Doe; two businesses -- All Body Shop Inside and Out and Unity Beef Sausage Co.; and three organizations-- the Council of Imams in New Jersey, Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada, and Muslim Foundation Inc.
Number 2 of the ‘Preliminary Statement’ section of the complaint states,
In early 2002, the NYPD began a secret spying program (“Program”) to infiltrate and monitor Muslim life in and around New York City. The Department has focused, in particular, upon New Jersey Muslims, conducting surveillance of at least twenty mosques, fourteen restaurants, eleven retail stores, two grade schools and two Muslim Student
Associations, in addition to untold numbers of individuals who own, operate, and visit those establishments. The Department has also created over twenty precinct-level maps of the City of Newark, noting the location of mosques and Muslim businesses and the ethnic composition of the Muslim community.
So why would the NYPD be watching Muslims from NJ, not to mention 20 mosques as alleged in the complaint? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that the FBI has arrested Islamic terrorists from a Jersey City mosque including Sheikh Omar Abdel- Rahman a.k.a "The Blind Sheikh?" Or perhaps it was the fact that the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 was proven to have been planned in that same mosque?
I have written several times that “there is a difference between “profiling” and good law enforcement.” If I am driving late at night in a known high drug activity area of an African American neighborhood and get pulled over for no reason other than being white is that profiling or good law enforcement? This goes on day in and day out in the US and the percentage of drug arrests from that type of scenario lead to convictions.
My point is this, good law enforcement uses the statistics and the fact is that, statistically, terrorists are of Middle Eastern decent aged 18-34 and yes, Muslim. Sorry, I don’t make up the numbers, I use facts. And using the facts is called “Suspect Profiling.”
According to a Quinnipiac Poll from April of this year, most residents of NJ agree with the NYPD tactics. The poll revealed that 62 percent of New Jersey voters said the NYPD's focus on Muslims was appropriate, 18 percent said it was unfair and 20 percent did not express an opinion. Republicans supported it 83-8 percent, Democrats by 44-27 percent, and independents by 64-17 percent.
Number 3 of the ‘Preliminary Statement’ I actually find humorous,
As part of the Program, the NYPD takes photographs and videos and collects license plate numbers at mosques. It also utilizes undercover officers and informants to infiltrate and surveil Muslim communities, including mosques, Muslim Student Associations and Muslim-owned businesses. Upon information and belief, the NYPD Program has not undertaken similar surveillance with respect to non-Muslim communities.
“Has not undertaken similar surveillance with respect to non-Muslim communities”? I wonder why … Has any other “religious” group committed 19,027 deadly acts of terrorism since 9/11/2001? For that matter, I can’t recall any Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Hindu blowing himself/herself up to murder innocents in the name of God recently.
Also mentioned in Number 3 of the complaint was the Muslim Student Association (MSA). Let’s look at that group for a moment. According to an article by Patrick Poole, the MSA was,
Founded in 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and operated as an arm of the Saudi-funded, Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Muslim World League, the MSA is one of the oldest, largest, and most respected Islamic institutions in the country. They have chapters at more than 100 universities and colleges.
Since its inception, the MSA has chronically been a vehicle of extremism, hatred, and incitement to violence. Its chapters host a wide variety of extremist speakers and have repeatedly raised funds for Islamic groups that have later been closed by the U.S. government for funding terrorism. For this reason, the MSA was identified in 2004 as one of 27 Islamic charities and groups in the U.S. under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee for terrorist support.
The MSA is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood as explained above. I have explained before, about the Muslim Brotherhood strategy memo, also known in counter-terror circles as ‘the project’. It was key evidence during the largest terror trial to date in the US, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial. The strategic objective of the Brotherhood in America as written by the MB and proven in court,
The Ikhwan [the Muslim Brotherhood's name for itself] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves forJihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack.
So, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) is a proven offshoot from the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the MB’s goal is to “destroy the Western civilization from within and sabotage its miserable house by their hands.” Using our courts and Constitution would seem like a way to achieve that destruction.
Also, from the same MB document, it lists 29 organizations that they plan to use to carry out their goal. The header reads,
A list of our Organizations and the Organizations of our friends (Imagine if they all march according to one plan).
Number 2 on that list is the Muslim Student Association.
Patrick Poole’s article lists no less than 7 Presidents, Vice Presidents and members of the MSA that have been arrested and convicted on terror charges.
If we here in the US or elsewhere in the world were facing Jewish terrorists bent on our destruction, would anyone be upset if synagogues were under surveillance? If terrorists were coming out of Hillel (Jewish student organization on college campuses), would anyone be complaining that the Hillel were being watched? It’s common sense, not profiling.
Jim Kouri reported in the Examiner,
Another large Muslim group -- the Council on American Islamic Relations -- is expected to file a similar lawsuit in Manhattan against the NYPD. A CAIR affiliate, attorney Mary Catherine Roper from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, stated, “They should be spending their time looking at the more specific behaviors that ought to draw their attention and make them investigate a person or a group.” She goes on to say that congregating to pray should not be a foundation of suspicion."
Maybe if the places of prayer weren’t recruiting grounds for the future terrorists of America and Imams weren’t preaching hate, it wouldn’t be a “foundation of suspicion.”
I have said time and time again, “that we in America need to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to terrorism.” I am glad that the NYPD is being proactive, performing good law enforcement and not backing down due to the law suits.
Gadi Adelman is a speaker on terrorism, jihad, sharia and Islam. He is a contributing editor for the Family Security Matters website as well as writing for Conservative Camp, Faith for Freedom, Gold Coast Chronicle and Pronline news. He has his own weekly radio show "America Akbar" that can be heard on the Radio Jihad network.
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