Bloomberg's Secret Police

NEWARK — Americans living and working in Newark were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department's effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city's mayor says he was kept in the dark.

For months in mid-2007, plainclothes officers from the NYPD's Demographics Units fanned out across Newark, taking pictures and eavesdropping on conversations inside businesses owned or frequented by Muslims.

The result was a 60-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, containing brief summaries of businesses and their clientele. Police also photographed and mapped 16 mosques, listing them as "Islamic Religious Institutions."

The report cited no evidence of terrorism or criminal behavior. It was a guide to Newark's Muslims.

According to the report, the operation was carried out in collaboration with the Newark Police Department, which at the time was run by a former high-ranking NYPD official. But Newark's mayor, Cory Booker, said he never authorized the spying and was never told about it.

"Wow," he said as the AP laid out the details of the report. "This raises a number of concerns. It's just very, very sobering."

Police conducted similar operations outside their jurisdiction in New York's Suffolk and Nassau counties on suburban Long Island, according to police records.

Such surveillance has become commonplace in New York City in the decade since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Police have built databases showing where Muslims live, where they buy groceries, even what Internet cafes they use and where they watch sports. Dozens of mosques and student groups have been infiltrated and police have built detailed profiles of ethnic communities, from Moroccans to Egyptians to Albanians.

The documents obtained by the AP show, for the first time in any detail, how those efforts stretched outside the NYPD's jurisdiction. New Jersey and Long Island residents had no reason to suspect the NYPD was watching them. And since the NYPD isn't accountable to their votes or tax dollars, those non-New Yorkers had little recourse to stop it.

"All of these are innocent people," Nagiba el-Sioufi of Newark said while her husband, Mohammed, flipped through the NYPD report, looking at photos of mosques and storefronts frequented by their friends.

Egyptian immigrants and American citizens, the couple raised two daughters in the United States. Mohammed works as an accountant and is vice president of the Islamic Culture Center, a mosque a few blocks from Newark City Hall.

"If you have an accusation on us, then spend the money on doing this to us," Nagiba said. "But you have no accusation."

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not return a message seeking comment about the report. Former Newark Police Chief Garry McCarthy, who is now in charge of the Chicago Police Department, also did not return messages left on his cellphone and with a press aide.

The goal of the report, like others the Demographics Unit compiled, was to give police at-their-fingertips access to information about Muslim neighborhoods. If police got a tip about an Egyptian terrorist in the area, for instance, they wanted to immediately know where he was likely to find a cheap room to rent, where he might buy his lunch and at what mosque he probably would attend Friday prayers.

"These locations provide the maximum ability to assess the general opinions and general activity of these communities," the Newark report said.

The effect of the program was that hundreds of American citizens were cataloged — sometimes by name, sometimes simply by their businesses and their ethnicity — in secret police files that spanned hundreds of pages:

• "A Black Muslim male named Mussa was working in the rear of store," an NYPD detective wrote after a clandestine visit to a dollar store in Shirley, N.Y., on Long Island.

• "The manager of this restaurant is an Indian Muslim male named Vicky Amin" was the report back from an Indian restaurant in Lindenhurst, N.Y., also on Long Island.

• "Owned and operated by an African Muslim (possibly Sudanese) male named Abdullah Ddita" was the summary from another dollar store in Shirley, N.Y., just off the highway on the way to the Hamptons, the wealthy Long Island getaway.

In one report, an officer describes how he put people at ease by speaking in Punjabi and Urdu, languages commonly spoken in Pakistan.

Last summer, when the AP first began reporting about the NYPD's surveillance efforts, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his police do not consider religion in their policing.

On Tuesday, following an AP story that showed the NYPD monitored Muslim student groups around the Northeast, school leaders including Yale president Richard Levin expressed outrage over the tactics. Bloomberg fired back in what was the most vigorous defense yet of his department.

"The police department goes where there are allegations. And they look to see whether those allegations are true," he told reporters. "That's what you'd expect them to do. That's what you'd want them to do. Remind yourself when you turn out the light tonight."

There are no allegations of terrorism in the Demographics Unit reports and the documents make clear that police were only interested in locations frequented by Muslims. The canvas of businesses in Newark mentions Islam and Muslims 27 times. In one section of the report, police wrote that the largest immigrant groups in Newark were from Portugal and Brazil. But they did not photograph businesses or churches for those groups.

"No Muslim component within these communities was identified," police wrote, except for one business owned by a Brazilian Muslim of Palestinian descent.

Polls show that most New Yorkers strongly support the NYPD's counterterrorism efforts and don't believe police unfairly target Muslims. The Muslim community, however, has called for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's resignation over the spying and the department's screening of a video that portrays Muslims as wanting to dominate the United States.

In Newark, the report was met with a mixture of bemusement and anger.

"Come, look at yourself on film," Abdul Kareem Abdullah called to his wife as he flipped through the NYPD files at the lunch counter of their restaurant, Hamidah's Cafe.

An American-born citizen who converted to Islam decades ago, Abdullah said he understands why, after the 9/11 terror attacks, people are afraid of Muslims. But he said he wishes the police would stop by, say hello, meet him and his customers and get to know them. The documents show police have no interest in that, he said.

"They just want to keep tabs on us," he said. "If they really wanted to understand, they'd come talk to us."

After the AP approached Booker, he said the mayor's office had launched an investigation.

"We're going to get to the bottom of this," he said.

Booker met with Islamic leaders while campaigning for mayor. Those interviewed by the AP said they wanted to believe he didn't authorize the spying but wanted to hear from him directly.

"I have to look in his eyes," Mohammed el-Sioufi said at his mosque. "I know him. I met him. He was here."

Ironically, because officers conducted the operation covertly, the reports contains mistakes that could have been easily corrected had the officers talked to store owners or imams. If police ever had to rely on the database during an unfolding terrorism emergency as they had planned, those errors would have hindered their efforts.

For instance, locals said several businesses identified as belonging to African-American Muslims actually were owned by Afghans or Pakistanis. El-Sioufi's mosque is listed as an African-American mosque, but he said the imam is from Egypt and the congregation is a roughly even mix of black converts and people of foreign ancestries.

"We're not trying to hide anything. We are out in the open," said Abdul A. Muhammad, the imam of the Masjid Ali Muslim mosque in Newark. "You want to come in? We have an open door policy."

By choosing instead to conduct such widespread surveillance, Mohammed el-Sioufi said, police send the message that the whole community is suspect.

"When you spy on someone, you are kind of accusing them. You are not accepting them for choosing Islam," Nagiba el-Sioufi said. "This doesn't say, 'This guy did something wrong.' This says, 'Everyone here is a Muslim.'"

"It makes you feel uncomfortable, like this is not your country," she added. "This is our country."

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NEWARK — Newark's former police director says no local officers were used in a spying operation that monitored and catalogued his city's Muslim neighborhoods.

Garry McCarthy tells the Associated Press today that the New York Police Department notified him as a courtesy that it was sending plainclothes offices into Newark in 2007. McCarthy says no Newark police officers were used in the operation.

The NYPD officers photographed mosques and eavesdropped on conversations in businesses frequented by Muslims. The result was a 60-page report, obtained by The AP, that was a guide to Newark's Muslims. It never mentioned terrorism or criminal allegations.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker says he never approved the spying and promised to investigate.

McCarthy is now working as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's police superintendent.

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rolling7 said:

What is extra abysmal is The Attorney General of the United States trying to get one over the American people that he did not know about Fast and Furious.

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Jiro said:

Do please feel free to create a new thread about it but I think we all have enough of your "Blame Obama" tirade so roll along now back to your bed or orderlies will do it for you.

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rolling7 said:

Are you posting words for another person well know here on AD? I've read the phrase so many times, it has to be coming from that person.

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rolling7 said:

And how is post #3 not related to post #2's "unaware of what was going on"?

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Gov. Chris Christie tonight laid into the New York Police Department for spying on New Jersey Muslims, saying he doesn’t know if the actions were "born out of arrogance, or out of paranoia, or out of both."

The governor also said the NYPD ignored a major lesson of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when it conducted the surveillance without telling New Jersey law enforcement agencies.

"I hope that almost 11 years past 9/11, we are not going to go back to those days because no one is omniscient," Christie said during an appearance on New Jersey 101.5 FM’s "Ask the Governor" program. "No one knows everything in this world in law enforcement."
Christie, who previously called the surveillance "disturbing," took his criticism a step further tonight, spending eight minutes of the hour-long radio show discussing the matter.

"I don’t know if this NYPD action was born out of arrogance, or out of paranoia, or out of both," he said, "but we’re taking a real good, strong hard look at it from a policy perspective at the governor’s office level."

Christie, who was U.S. attorney when the surveillance took place, reiterated that he and his top-level staff don’t recall being briefed on the operation. Neither New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg nor Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has apologized for the department’s actions, further incensing leaders on this side of the Hudson River.

"Well, because he’s Ray Kelly, what are you going to do," Christie said sarcastically. "He’s all knowing, all seeing."

The Associated Press reported last month that in 2007, the NYPD began monitoring Muslim-owned businesses and houses of worship in Newark.

Acknowledging there’s a need to conduct covert operations to protect the state and region, Christie said law enforcement officers’ lives are at risk when multiple agencies watch the same people unbeknownst to each other.

"My concern, and I don’t know all the details yet, but my concern is, why can’t you be communicating with law enforcement here in New Jersey?" he asked. "Are we somehow not trustworthy?"

Christie conceded that as the top federal prosecutor in the state he didn’t always tip off municipalities on corruption busts, but it was not required.

"I had federal jurisdiction, so we could go anywhere," he said of his U.S. attorney job. "This is the New York Police Department. I know they think their jurisdiction is the world. Their jurisdiction is New York City. My concern is this kind of obsession that the NYPD seems to have that they’re the masters of the universe."

In cases involving terrorism, Christie said, his U.S. Attorney’s Office would inform the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes federal, state and local law enforcement. He said he believes the NYPD should have done the same.

In addition to dismissing criticisms from Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Bloomberg and the NYPD have strongly defended their cops’ tactics, which became public in February. The snub has led New Jersey to call for an investigation into the NYPD.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told federal lawmakers this week that the Justice Department was reviewing requests to investigate the NYPD’s intelligence operations amid the scandal.

"We’re in the process of reviewing those letters to determine what action, if any, we should take," Holder told a House appropriations subcommittee.

New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa said his office is continuing to gather information on the surveillance.

"My reaction’s the same as it’s been," he said at a news conference today in Trenton. "Any time any rights of our citizens feel threatened, we take that very seriously. But I’m not going to make any statement until I’ve had a chance to evaluate information about it."

Chiesa declined to detail the nature of meetings between his office and NYPD officials, which reportedly began Tuesday.

A summit is planned for Saturday in Trenton to assure Muslim leaders state and federal law enforcement officers are addressing the New York police incursions into New Jersey

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WASHINGTON — Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put American Muslim neighborhoods in Newark and other places under surveillance.

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.

Some of that money — it's unclear exactly how much because the program has little oversight — has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods. It also paid for computers that store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.

When NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was filled in on these efforts, his briefings were prepared on HIDTA computers.

The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and federal officials. The AP also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA computers. The HIDTA grant program is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The disclosure that the White House is at least partially paying for the NYPD's wholesale surveillance of places where Muslims eat, shop, work and pray complicates efforts by the Obama administration to stay out of the fray over New York's controversial counterterrorism programs. The administration has championed outreach to American Muslims and has said law enforcement should not put entire communities under suspicion.

The Obama administration, however, has pointedly refused to endorse or repudiate the NYPD programs it helps pay for. The White House last week declined to comment on its grant payments.

John Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, last year called the NYPD's efforts "heroic" but would not elaborate. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department also gives grant money to the NYPD and is one of the lead federal agencies helping police build relationships with Muslims, has refused in recent months to discuss the police tactics. Tom Perez, the Justice Department's top civil rights lawyer, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the NYPD.

Outside Washington, the NYPD's efforts drew increased criticism last week. College administrators at Yale, Columbia and elsewhere issued harsh rebukes for NYPD's infiltration of Muslim student groups and its monitoring of school websites. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the Newark Mayor Cory Booker have complained about the NYPD's widespread surveillance there, outside New York's police jurisdiction.

The White House HIDTA grant program was established at the height of the drug war to help police fight drug gangs and unravel supply routes. It has provided about $2.3 billion to local authorities in the past decade.

After the terror attacks, law enforcement was allowed to use some of that money to fight terrorism. It's unclear how much HIDTA money has been used to pay for the intelligence division, in part because NYPD intelligence operations receive scant oversight in New York.

Congress, which approves the money for the program, is not provided with a detailed breakdown of activities. None of the NYPD's clandestine programs is cited in the New York-New Jersey region's annual reports to Congress between 2006 and 2010.

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to questions the AP sent to him in two emails about the White House money and the department's intelligence division.

Most of the money from the White House grants in New York and New Jersey has been spent fighting drugs, said Chauncey Parker, director of the program there. He said less than $1.3 million was spent on vehicles used by the NYPD intelligence unit.

"Those cars are used to collect and analyze counterterrorism information with the goal of preventing a terrorist attack in New York City or anywhere else," Parker said. "If it's been used for specific counterterrorism effort, then it's been used to pay for those cars."

Former police officials told the AP those vehicles have been used to photograph mosques and record the license plates of worshippers.

In addition to paying for the cars, the White House money pays for part of the office space the intelligence division shares with other agencies in Manhattan.

When police compiled lists of Muslims who took new, Americanized names, they kept those records on HIDTA computer servers. That was ongoing as recently as October, city officials said.

Many NYPD intelligence officers, including those that conducted surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods, had HIDTA email addresses. Briefing documents for Kelly, the police commissioner, were compiled on HIDTA computers. Those documents described what police informants were hearing inside mosques and which academic conferences Muslim scholars attended.

When police wanted to pay a confidential informant, they were told to sign onto the HIDTA website to file the paperwork, according to a 2007 internal document obtained by the AP.

Parker said the White House grant money was never used to pay any of the NYPD intelligence division's confidential informants. The HIDTA computer systems, he said, are platforms that allow different law enforcement agencies to share information and work.

"I am shocked to hear that federal dollars may have helped finance the NYPD's misguided efforts to spy on Muslims in America," said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., one of 34 members of Congress who have asked the Justice Department and House Judiciary Committee to investigate the NYPD.

The connection between NYPD and the White House anti-drug grant program surfaced years ago, during a long-running civil rights lawsuit against police. Civil rights attorneys asked in court about a "demonstration debriefing form" that police used whenever they arrested people for civil disobedience. The form carried the seal of both the NYPD Intelligence Division and HIDTA.

A city lawyer downplayed any connection. She said the NYPD and HIDTA not only shared office space, they also shared office supplies like paper. The NYPD form with the seal of a White House anti-drug program was "a recycled piece of paper that got picked up and modified," attorney Gail Donoghue told a federal judge in 2003.

The issue died in court and was never pursued further.

Last week, the controversy over NYPD's programs drew one former Obama administration official into the discussion.

After the AP revealed an extensive program to monitor Muslims in Newark, N.J., police there denied knowing anything about it. The Newark police director at the time, Garry McCarthy, has since moved on to lead Chicago's police department where President Barack Obama's first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is now the mayor.

"We don't do that in Chicago and we're not going to do that," Emanuel said last week.

Christie said the NYPD surveillance in his state was "disturbing" and has asked the attorney general to investigate. Christie was New Jersey's top federal prosecutor and sat on the HIDTA executive board during 2006 and 2007 when the NYPD was conducting surveillance in New Jersey cities. Christie said he didn't know that, in 2007, the NYPD catalogued every mosque and Muslim business in Newark, the state's largest city.

"I kind of think I would have remembered that," he said on Fox Business News last week.

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