White House grant money paid for NYPD blanket surveillance of Muslims, mosques

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Monday it has no control over how the New York Police Department spends millions of dollars in White House grants that helped pay for NYPD programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance. In New York, the police commissioner said he wouldn’t apologize.

The White House has no opinion about how the grant money was spent, spokesman Jay Carney said. The Associated Press reported Monday that the White House money has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods and paid for computers that stored even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.

The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA. It’s unclear exactly how much was spent on surveillance of Muslims because the HIDTA program has little oversight.

In New York, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was again unapologetic. Kelly said that some local politicians who questioned the NYPD’s methods were pandering to voters in upcoming elections, and said that others — including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and Newark Mayor Cory Booker — were wrong to question the department.

“Not everybody is going to be happy with everything the police department does, that’s the nature of our business,” Kelly said. “But our primary mission, our primary goal is to keep this city safe, to save lives. That’s what we’re engaged in doing.”

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