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Court: Lawsuit Over NYPD Surveillance of Muslims Can Proceed (washingtonpost.com)
PolygamousRanchKid sends this report from the Washington Post:
A federal court said Tuesday that a civil rights lawsuit accusing police in New York City of improperly singling out Muslims for surveillance could proceed, reversing a lower court's decision last year to dismiss the case. In its opinion (PDF), a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit rejected the city's call to have the case dismissed and brushed aside any suggestion that media reports about the surveillance, rather than the surveillance itself, caused any harm.
The lawsuit claims that surveillance of Muslim people in New Jersey discriminated against them due to their religion. It was filed by Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy group, and later joined by the Center for Constitutional Rights, another legal organization, on behalf of several New Jersey Muslims who say they were unconstitutionally monitored by the New York Police Department. ... Last year, the NYPD disbanded the unit involved in the surveillance activities, a move that Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) praised in a statement at the time as "a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve."
The lawsuit claims that surveillance of Muslim people in New Jersey discriminated against them due to their religion. It was filed by Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy group, and later joined by the Center for Constitutional Rights, another legal organization, on behalf of several New Jersey Muslims who say they were unconstitutionally monitored by the New York Police Department. ... Last year, the NYPD disbanded the unit involved in the surveillance activities, a move that Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) praised in a statement at the time as "a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve."
So is your thinking that when facing the persistent long term threat of violent extremists Islamists (which are pretty much exclusively Muslim) dedicated to the overthrow of Western civilization that the proper course of action is to search for violent Buddhists, Lutherans, and atheists? Because, Diversity!??
What "understanding" do you think people lack that causes them to opposed groups that intend to kill large number of your fellow citizens in the hopes of forcing either surrender or conformity to a foreign religion, and the overthrow of the current society and government?
Do you think it is possible that the actual problem is people that don't acknowledge the danger and support reasonable means to oppose it? Do you think it is possible that the faulty application of a value such as diversity is leading people astray?
How do the think the problem of Islamic extremists trying to overthrow your society and government gets better with more "diversity" in government?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I'm finished with engaging with the Slashdot community. All I see are paranoid overzealous comments in what is overwhelmingly a a civil liberties story.
It is worth mentioning that zero terrorist attacks were foiled through this surveillance program; those promoting xenophobic mistruths in the comments should be ashamed of themselves.
Actually, in the USA the biggest source of terrorism is from gun holders. You're far more likely to be killed from a nutter with a gun on a rampage than any foreign terrorist threat. So really they should spy on all gun owners and their households, since that's the biggest threat.
But that is maybe too large a group, you'd be spying on too many people and many of those gun holders have a gun for self defense. So to focus on a narrower set more likely to be extremists.
So you could spy on everyone who has a gun and follows that extremist religious preacher you see on TV, you know the guy who spouts hate, constantly makes Hitler references, and wants his followers to carry guns. The gunman who shot Senator Gabrielle Giffords was one of his disciples, radicalized to become a terrorist.
I think the preacher is call "Bill O Reilly" or something and he's on the extremist Fox channel.