Subscribe
The Daily Grind Video
CLOSE

Not only did the New York Police Department target Muslim mosques and residents of Newark, NJ, and the tri-state area, but they are now defending their tactics.

EXCLUSIVE: Cory Booker: “No Newark Resident Should Be Subject To Spying”

The NYPD’s spokesman, Paul Browne, defended the legality of those efforts Thursday, telling reporters that its officers may go wherever the public goes and collect intelligence, even outside city limits.

STORY: Not In My City! Cory Booker Condemns NYPD Spying On Newark Muslims

The NYPD continues to fight off criticism after documents, obtained by The Associated Press, surfaced detailing how the NYPD monitored Muslim student groups and its cataloging of mosques and Muslim businesses in nearby Newark, N.J.

STORY: Brick City! NYPD Spied On Muslims In Newark

The new documents, prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, show how the NYPD’s roster of paid informants monitored conversations and sermons inside mosques.

The records offer the first glimpse of what those informants, known informally as “mosque crawlers,” gleaned from inside the houses of worship.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker told us yesterday that he was never told about the surveillance, which he said offended him.

Booker and his police director accused the NYPD of misleading them by not revealing exactly what they were doing. Had they known, they said it never would have been permitted.

But Browne said Newark police were told before and after the operation and knew exactly what it entailed.

Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have been emphatic that police only follow legitimate leads of criminal activity and do not conduct preventive surveillance in ethnic communities.

According to the intel collected, the NYPD would put cameras on light poles and trained them on mosques. Because the cameras were in public space, police didn’t need a warrant to conduct the surveillance.

Officers would also write down the license plates of cars in mosque parking lots.

In some instances, police in unmarked cars outfitted with electronic license plate readers would drive down the street and record the plates of everyone parked near the mosque, former officials recalled.

Akbar Mohammed, an imam for the past eight years said:

“They’re viewing Muslims like they’re crazy. They’re terrorists. They all must be fanatics. That’s not right.”

And he’s right; no one should be subject to spying based on their religion.

View the NYPD documents: www.ap.org/nypd

NYPD Informant summaries of Danish cartoons: www.apne.ws/zVwtCt

NYPD New Jersey mosque targeting: www.apne.ws/wsrSvN

NYPD Informant summaries of plane crash: www.apne.ws/xB9kVM