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Court: Lawsuit Over NYPD Surveillance of Muslims Can Proceed (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the try-surveilling-this-can-of-worms dept.

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."

18 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. sigh... by dejitaru · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I sometimes wonder if there will be a time when we (US Government... or any government) wont look at someones race or religion as a threat and start looking more at the individual's past actions instead. I guess the only way that could change would be if we got more diverse people into government leadership positions... or if people would stop being so scared at things they don't understand. Our fear is usually the result of our own downfall.

    1. Re:sigh... by Uberbah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because killing 2,606 in the WTC should just be forgotten.

      Hey. American Exceptionalist. If the rest of the world held the U.S. to that standard, the entire American population would have been exterminated decades ago. Because you can take the above number, add four zeros to it, double that number, and you have a good approximation of the number of deaths the U.S. is responsible for since WWII.

    2. Re:sigh... by kauaidiver · · Score: 0, Insightful

      And much of that is collateral damage, still wrong yes. Also U.S. intervention has only exacerbated the Sunni-Shia strife in the region. The U.S. is guilty yes, but of not understanding political Islam and how it plays a role in the M.E.

      Intentions matter, people killing or subjugating others because they are among the dis-believers is part of the ideology as stated in the Quran 9:29.

    3. Re:sigh... by cold+fjord · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because killing 2,606 in the WTC should just be forgotten.

      Hey. American Exceptionalist. If the rest of the world held the U.S. to that standard, the entire American population would have been exterminated decades ago. Because you can take the above number, add four zeros to it, double that number, and you have a good approximation of the number of deaths the U.S. is responsible for since WWII.

      Actually you're an "American Exceptionalist" too. The difference is that you seem to think that the US is "exceptionally" bad and has had an exceptionally evil influence and impact on the world. In fact you think it is so bad that you're resorting to imaginary numbers to describe it. It is completely understandable that you turn to desperate measures if you want to deflect attention from the horror that the internationalist socialists called Communists wrecked on the world. They killed 100,000,000 people while visiting untold misery and torment on countless others. Their actions dwarf anything that the US actually did (as opposed to your imaginary numbers).

      The Black Book of Communism

      --
      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
    4. Re: sigh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are you talking about Muslims or the Republicans?

    5. Re: sigh... by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sounds like the GP wants us to just forget what they did.

      What do you mean by "they"?

      We have no evidence that anybody who "did" that was a US citizen, and almost everyone who was responsible is dead. The few who aren't will never set foot in the United States again.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    6. Re:sigh... by MrKaos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because killing 2,606 in the WTC should just be forgotten.

      No it should not be forgotten, because it was the excuse used to hi jack the U.S Constitution from the American people and initiate a cascade of legislative changes around the western world to protect us from something that wasn't a threat in the first place.

      This is a issue of structural democracy and how we've been tricked into thinking that democracy is so fragile that we need to destroy it to stay 'safe'. Islam extremism has always been used as an excuse to take away the freedoms that built western democracies. Nothing's changed except now we have terrorism *and* laws that are make us a police state.

      I don't care about being safe, I've never expected that, I expect to be free and now we are neither.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    7. Re:sigh... by kauaidiver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Old Testament my friend.

      The Quran goes in the opposite direction of the Bible getting more violent as it progresses, as Mohammed is denied as a prophet as he trekked north from Mecca to Medina.

    8. Re:sigh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Old Testament my friend.

      I'm not your friend, buddy.

      The Quran goes in the opposite direction of the Bible getting more violent as it progresses, as Mohammed is denied as a prophet as he trekked north from Mecca to Medina.

      Well, that's a great statement and all, but where I live the worst mass murders in the last 50 years have been done by Christian fundamentalists.

    9. Re:sigh... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's not what the GP was arguing. They were saying that if you think those who died in the WTC attacks should not be forgotten and their deaths should shape current policy towards the entire group that the criminals were part of (Muslims), then you should hold the US to the same standard.

      Any by extension, you should hold the Communists to the same standard. If we do that, it's total war until everyone is dead. Fortunately most of us recognize that while the US has done bad things, every US citizen is not individually responsible or likely to be a threat to us. The US needs to recognize the same thing about individual Muslims, as this ruling does.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    10. Re:sigh... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Extremist Islamists is a small subset of Muslims; just like extremist Northern Ireland bombers were a small subset of Protestants and Catholic.

      Yes, but every Catholic shares the guilt for child molestation because they are still funding the church that's still only hiring unmarried priests, and then relocating them when they rape children. And every Muslim shares the guilt for promoting a religion which is unremittingly theocratic. It's not the religion of peace, it's the religion of submission, and promoting it is the same as opposing religious freedom.

      Muslims aren't any more culpable than Catholics. Both are shitheels.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    11. Re:sigh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      . 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.

      IIRC, the 50M are based on including the Russian famine under Stalin, and the Chinese famine under Mao. (Stalin's is counted because he intended to starve out the opposition, and Mao's famine is counted because it was a direct result of placing ideology over reality.)

      That said, the two takeaways I got from the Cold War were first, that authoritarian states based on mass surveillance tend to end very poorly for all involved. And second, that the average citizen of Earth is more likely to be killed by his or her own government than a random citizen. Both of these lessons strongly suggest that it is in the best interests of both the US government and US citizens to change its policy on domestic surveillance before we end up making the same mistakes for the same reasons.

  2. What do you expect? by chipschap · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is sort of like the Chinese complaining that counterintelligence focuses on them as being in a group that provides possible spies for China.

    What do you expect? Should counterintelligence focus on Swedes instead?

    Get real. You focus on where the problem is likely to be. Is that somehow "discrimination" or "unfair" or just common sense?

    1. Re:What do you expect? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      When you look at crime rates or acts of terrorism, Muslims don't account for a particularly large proportion relative to the size of the Muslim population. Some Muslims were the most successful terrorists ever in the US with 9/11, but that one-time event which was mostly developed overseas isn't a good reason to start suspecting all Muslims or adding extra surveillance. Aside from anything else it's drawing resources away from all the non-Muslim terrorists and criminals who are more of a threat.

      Saying to someone "hay, we need to watch you and your family and your friends because you are more like to be a criminal, it's just in your nature" isn't a good idea either. It doesn't exactly help integrate them or push them away from hating you and deciding to do something about it. People talk about Muslims hating the west and western freedom, but it's not like the feeling isn't mutual and those same people wouldn't have any qualms about treating Muslims as lesser human beings.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:What do you expect? by tomthepom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is sort of like the Chinese complaining that counterintelligence focuses on them as being in a group that provides possible spies for China.

      Replace 'Chinese' with 'Asian-Americans' and you get an analogy a bit closer to the truth. And maybe then you'll see how disturbing that is, especially considering america's fairly recent history in that regard.

      What do you expect? Should counterintelligence focus on Swedes instead?

      No, but perhaps they should focus on white christians, whose extremists have killed twice as many in terror attacks in the US since 9/11. I'm not sure how compliant Christian churches would be with a little 'common sense' surveillance on their premises to weed out the extremists in their midst.

  3. Crime before the investigation by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!??

    I kinda' want to get back to the mode where the crime comes before the investigation, you know?

    Crime's been going down, we're currently at the lowest point it's been for decades.

    We're starting to get a handle on what causes crime, and it turns out to be completely unrelated to policing or enforcement or longer jail sentences or anything like that: it's things like tetra-ethyl-lead wearing out of the environment, access to abortions for unwanted pregnancies 20 years ago, economic security, and things like that.

    The police seem to think it's their job to prevent crime from happening, and they're bored because they have nothing else to do, and so they take great pains to try to predict who will commit a crime and take action before it happens.

    We're seeing this already in things like parallel construction, seeing which crimes can be extended to cover an action they don't like, and arresting people for "planning" to join ISIS.

    On that last one: people aren't attacking America, didn't join a group that attacks America, didn't go to the country where they *could* have joined the group that attacks America, and didn't have a *plane ticket* to go to the country where they *could* have joined the group that attacks America...

    and yet, posting "I'm going to join ISIS" on your facebook page is enough to get you thrown in jail in this country. It's "pre-crime" prosecution.

    I kinda' want to get back to the mode where the crime comes before the investigation, you know?

  4. Don't confuse liberals with facts by Bruce66423 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At the heart of the Western liberal mindset are two basic assumptions: everyone has essentially the same beliefs as us, and it's all right to ignore all evidence to the contrary. This derives from an over optimistic reading of history combined with the propensity of modern theology to interpret all the difficult bits of the bible away.

    Such people therefore assume that everyone else does the same to their scriptures and end up with core beliefs just like them. When they find they don't, they are forced to conclude that these must be a small minority - because the alternative is to challenge their deeply held beliefs. And lo - they rate your contribution as a troll. Funny that...

    Now it can well be argued that conservatives are TOO pessimistic - but at least we don't get unpleasantly surprised...

  5. Re:Islam early history by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And if so, do we argue that Islam is a criminal organisation? If not, why not?

    The Vatican is still relocating child molesters and you want to argue about whether Islam is a criminal organization? If Islam is, then Catholicism absolutely is; the vatican is still relocating child molesters. If we can't indict the Vatican, which is provably a single criminal organization, how the shit do you expect to convince people that all of Islam is one big criminal conspiracy?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"