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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."

22 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 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});
    3. 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.
    4. 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.

    5. Re:sigh... by jandersen · · Score: 4, Informative

      ...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.

    6. 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
    7. 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.'"
    8. Re:sigh... by dunkelfalke · · Score: 4, Informative

      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
    9. Re:sigh... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      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!??

      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.
    10. Re:sigh... by gman003 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  2. Will NYC PD take a dive? by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have to wonder if Mayor de Blasio will force the NYC PD to take a dive on this suit to get a particular precedent into law like the Obama administration has done?

    The would seem to be as easy method of advancing the agenda in a way hard to reverse. Of course that probably won't work out well for everyone else.

    --
    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
  3. 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 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.

  4. 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?

  5. Islam early history by Bruce66423 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the early years of the expansion of the Islamic Empire, during the last years of its prophet's life, the empire used the technique of hit and run brigandage on the surrounding territories as a way to soften them up for subsequent invasion. The reality is that Islam can reasonably be argued to be a moral legitimation for an expansionist empire; that the Arabs got to FRANCE before being turned back is not usually known.

    Of course there are some Muslims who are embarrassed by this history, and merely endorse Islam because that's what they grew up in. The problem is whether we should believe what they say, or realising that Islam regards itself at war with all outsiders, justifying deceiving them, treat all denials with great scepticism. And if so, do we argue that Islam is a criminal organisation? If not, why not?

    1. Re:Islam early history by Orgasmatron · · Score: 5, Informative

      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?
    2. 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.'"
  6. Koran 9:29 by zapadnik · · Score: 3, Informative

    Koran 9:29 is one of the last non-abrogated verses of the Koran and states:

    Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.

    This aya replaces pretty much everything else in Islam. It is amazing that so many Slashdotters have so many opinions on Islam without understanding some of the fundamental doctrines of Islam (which Islamists try to keep hidden from you).

    1. Re:Koran 9:29 by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 3, Informative

      This isn't any different from, well, the entire OT, or quite a bit of the NT, including Revelations.

      --
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  7. Re:Surveillance beats bloodshed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    > 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.

  8. Re: Surveillance beats bloodshed by Orgasmatron · · Score: 3, Informative

    Which religious group are you talking about that has a 1500 year history of "leaving you the fuck alone"?

    It sure isn't Islam.

    --
    See that "Preview" button?