NYPD commissioner Kelly clashes with council over calls to regulate Muslim surveillance

NEW YORK — New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly on Thursday challenged city council members who want to create an inspector general to regulate the department’s surveillance of Muslims, saying his department needs no additional oversight. In sometimes heated exchanges with council members at a budget hearing, Kelly defended his department’s counterterrorism surveillance program as…

Share Button
Read More

Veteran cops, mayors say by spying on Muslims, NYPD risks access to info needed to stop terror

CHICAGO — The tip was a surprise when it arrived on the desk of Ted Wasky. Had it not come, the former FBI agent fears five Muslim men in northwest Ohio might have pulled off a plot to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The source of the tip? A fellow group of Muslims living in…

Share Button
Read More

Bloomberg says religion not a factor for NYPD but documents suggest otherwise

NEW YORK — The New York Police Department collected information on businesses owned by second- and third-generation Americans specifically because they were Muslims, according to newly obtained secret documents. They show in the clearest terms yet that police were monitoring people based on religion, despite claims from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the contrary. The NYPD…

Share Button
Read More

Holder tells Congress he’s disturbed by reports of NYPD spying on Muslims in New Jersey

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Thursday he’s disturbed by what he’s read about the New York Police Department conducting surveillance of mosques and Islamic student organizations in New Jersey. Holder’s brief comments represented the most extensive public discussion of the topic to date by anyone in the Obama administration. The administration…

Share Button
Read More

Muslims rally in support of NYPD surveillance tactics, say police ‘not trying to hurt us’

NEW YORK — Qazi Qayyoom, an imam in Queens, says he believes the New York Police Department is keeping his community safe, and if that means some Muslims are monitored, so be it. “The police, they come to us and say, ‘Is everything OK? How can we help you?” he said Monday. “They are not…

Share Button
Read More