NYPD monitors Islam, Justice Dept not happy

To the Justice Dept; show another group besides Islam that has attacked both themselves and others in the name of their God more than 18,000 times since Sept 11 and I will agree to your investigation.  If not, shut up a little.

I can wait all day....

From CBS News Feb 28

 WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Tuesday that, months after receiving complaints about the New York Police Department's surveillance of entire American Muslim neighborhoods, the Justice Department is beginning a review to decide whether to investigate civil rights violations.

Holder said that police seeking to monitor activities by citizens "should only do so when there is a basis to believe that something inappropriate is occurring or potentially could occur."

Holder responded under questioning by Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., who as an infant was sent with his parents to a Japanese internment camp during World War II and has compared that policy to the NYPD's treatment of Muslims. The attorney general was on Capitol Hill to discuss the Justice Department's federal budget.

The analogy is not even close.  But if you really want to compare apples to oranges, how about studying the doctrine of Islam, as defined by its leaders and practiced by some Muslims, and use that to incarcerate future jihadists and those who use the Qur'an to justify their actions.

Holder did not suggest that a Justice Department investigation of the NYPD was imminent. Over the last six months, the AP has revealed the inner workings of secret programs of the NYPD, built with help from the CIA, to monitor Muslims.

Police have built databases showing where Muslims live, where they buy groceries, what Internet cafes they use and where they watch sports. Dozens of mosques and student groups have been infiltrated, and police have built detailed profiles of Moroccans, Egyptians, Albanians and other local ethnic groups. The NYPD surveillance extended outside New York City to neighboring New Jersey and Long Island and at colleges across the Northeast.

"I don't know even if the program as it has been described in the news media was an appropriate way to proceed, was consistent with the way in which the federal government would have done these things," said Holder, who was born in the Bronx and described New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as his personal friend. "I simply just don't know the answers to those questions at the beginning stages of this matter."

The AP has reported that some of the NYPD's activities — such as its 2006 surveillance of Masjid Omar, a mosque in Paterson, N.J. — could not have been performed under federal rules unless the FBI believed that the mosque itself was part of a criminal enterprise. Even then, federal agents would need approval from senior FBI and Justice Department officials.

But on campus...

(...)Universities including Yale, Columbia and Rutgers have joined in criticizing the NYPD for infiltrating Muslim student groups and trawling their websites. Police put the names of students and academics in reports even when they were not suspected of wrongdoing. And in Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker said he was offended by the NYPD's secret surveillance of his city's Muslims.

The president of Rutgers University in New Jersey on Tuesday urged the state's attorney general to investigate the NYPD's surveillance activities of Muslim students on New Jersey campuses. In a statement, he called the surveillance a matter of grave concern to students, faculty and alumni.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has also asked the state attorney general to look into the NYPD's operations inside New Jersey. U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. has also urged Holder to look into the NYPD's operations outside New York. The president of Columbia University planned a public meeting Tuesday night to discuss the NYPD's surveillance of Muslim students.

The University of note who hosted Ahmadinejad of Iran a few years ago.   

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