Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

NYPD Disbands Unit That Snooped on Muslims

The New York Police Department has disbanded a surveillance unit that targeted and monitored Muslim communities, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The unit, which began in 2003, has been largely inactive since the incoming Police Commissioner William Bratton took over the department in January, and its detectives have been reassigned, the report said.

“Understanding certain local demographics can be a useful factor when assessing the threat information that comes into New York City virtually on a daily basis,” Stephen Davis, the NYPD’s chief spokesman, was quoted as saying.

“In the future, we will gather that information, if necessary, through direct contact between the police precincts and the representatives of the communities they serve,” he said.

The NYPD and Davis did not respond to Reuters’ requests for confirmation or comment.

The surveillance program deployed undercover detectives in Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and watch day-to-day activities. Police also infiltrated mosques and student groups.

The department’s widespread program was first revealed in a series of articles by the Associated Press, which reported that officers had infiltrated Muslim organizations in the region following the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who left office in January, and police officials had defended the program as vital to anti-terrorism efforts.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized the program when he was campaigning for office last fall and said NYPD surveillance should only be authorized to follow up on specific leads.

The program was also criticized by civil liberties advocates and was tested in court.

Last month, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, threw out a lawsuit brought by several New Jersey Muslims who claimed the NYPD illegally targeted them for undercover monitoring solely because of their religion.

The judge said the city persuasively argued that its surveillance was intended as an anti-terrorism, not an anti-Muslim, measure.

A similar lawsuit in New York is pending

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.