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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."
...which are pretty much exclusively Muslim...
You mean, when high-ranking Christians in the US come up with things like 'Muhammad was a "demon-possessed pedophile"' (Jerry Vines) and "This man was an absolute wild-eyed fanatic. He was a robber and a brigand." (Pat Robertson, about Muhammed) - then they are not extremists? (from http://www.counterpunch.org/20...).
Here, take some statistics: "Fifty-six percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. since 1995 have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists, as compared to 30 percent by ecoterrorists and 12 percent by Islamic extremists. Right-wing extremism has been responsible for the greatest number of terrorist incidents in the U.S. in 13 of the 17 years since the Oklahoma City bombing." (http://www.soundvision.com/article/some-statistics-and-facts-on-right-wing-extremism-in-the-united-states)
What "understanding" do you think people lack...
Speaking of understanding, I think it is clear that you haven't got a lot of it. If you want to solve a problem - any problem - then you have to let the real facts guide you, not just the facts that suit your own bigotry. Whatever you may think a religious text has to say about anything, what really matters in the end is the person and the actions, good or bad, performed by that person. Take Buddhism, widely recognised as one of the most pacifistic religions in the world, yet in Myanmar and Thailand there are Buddhists that carry out violent attacks against those from other religions - mostly Muslims, in fact. Or look to the history Christianity for a list of the vilest atrocities you can imagine; all carried out in the name of Christ by men and sometimes women who were deeply sincere in their faith.
This is clearly not a problem of Islam or any other, single religion; it is about people and what kind of background they come from. When you grow up to learn from day one that you are a nothing, a born loser who will never, ever make it, no matter how hard you work or how honest you are, because you are somehow the 'wrong sort' and never get a real opportunity, is it any wonder that you become bitter and hate the society so full of freedoms and opportunities that you can see, but which you can never reach? And when somebody - anybody - comes along pretending to give you the respect and the hope you crave, is it strange that you are willing to follow them, even if, in the end, it implies strapping a bomb-vest on and blowing up yourself and a load of innocent people belonging to the society that never allowed you in?
We clearly can't just roll over and take it from the likes of IS, but if we want to really solve the problem, we have to realise that we, ourselves, play a major role in feeding the fire, because we are unwilling to accept the responsibility we obviously have when we let too many people at the bottom of society down.
You are off by nearly 1000 years, dude.
Think Charles Martel at Tours in 732, not John III Sobieski at Vienna in 1683.
See that "Preview" button?
> we stuck our fingers up at the IRA, carried on with our lives and continued to trust white people even if they were Irish or Catholic
(Northern) Irish Protestant here. The above statement isn't entirely true.
All within my own lifetime:
- White Irish Catholics were interned without trial (like Guantanamo) - citation
- They were tortured - citation
- They were falsely accused and imprisoned - citation
- Their legal representation was targeted by state actors - citation
- There was a "shoot to kill" policy in place for Irish terrorism - citation
- Civil rights marches (that included protestants) were attacked by state forces - citation
I'm not attempting to justify the IRA's campaign, nor even comment upon its legitimacy.
I do want to point out though, that profiling is (and probably always has been) used in these sort of scenarios (for right or for wrong).
Inter arma enim silent leges.
Well, it is difficult to take this piece of cold war propaganda for real when its numbers are often off by a factor 50 or so. Simple example: the guesstimates of Stalin's purges run up to 100 millions (would be half of the Soviet population, if one just stops and thinks about it). After the NKVD archives were released to the public in the 1990ies, it became pretty clear, that somewhat less than a million was executed and another 500000 died due to repressions. Still a huge number, but pales in comparison of how many Soviets were killed by Nazi Germany.
Even more ironic is the fact that at any given time during Stalin's rule there were about 3 millions of Soviet citizens imprisoned, which is not really that far off the number of currently incarcerated Americans - 2.2 millions, currently the largest prison population in the whole bloody world. Land of the free my arse.
But since you are usually as full of shit as a cesspit emptier, it is no wonder you spread that crap everywhere you can.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
In the past decade, right-wing extremists have killed more Americans than muslim terrorists. Do you believe we face a "persistent long term threat" from Christian fundamentalists, gun nuts and "oath-keepers"? There's your "diversity", Johnny.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Since 9/11, the following non-islamic terrorist attacks have occurred inside the United States:
2001 anthrax attacks
2003 Ohio highway sniper attacks
2008 ELF arsons
2008 San Diego bombings
2008 Santa Cruz firebombings
2009 assassination of George Tiller
2010 IRS kamikaze attack
2010 Pentagon shooting
2010 hostage crisis
2012 Sikh temple shooting
2013 ricin letters
2013 LAX shootings
2014 Kansas City shootings
2014 Las Vegas shootings
2014 Austin consulate arson
2014 NYC police shootings
2015 Charleston shooting
Several of these were by radical Christian groups. Others had nothing to do with religion - white supremacist, anti-government and environmentalist groups seem particularly dangerous.