NYPD found secretly monitoring Muslim college students

A report revealing that the New York Police Department secretly monitored Muslim students at Northeast colleges has raised questions of constitutionality and civil liberties.

The Associated Press reported Saturday that the NYPD regularly checked Muslim Student Association websites, blogs and forums at schools such as Penn, the University at Buffalo and Yale, Columbia and New York universities.

According to a confidential November 2006 NYPD report released by the AP, no “significant information” was found on Penn’s MSA.

However, the report listed detailed information on people and events hosted by the Muslim Student Associations at universities such as University of Buffalo, New York University and Rutgers University.

Penn’s MSA became aware of the surveillance about a week ago.

The MSA released a statement saying, “We are disturbed and disappointed that the NYPD has viewed us as a potential threat on the basis of religious affiliation. We seek to establish a fun, inclusive and engaging environment to create opportunities for the social, spiritual and professional growth of those on campus interested in Islam.”

Penn administrators also heard of the monitoring last week, according to Vice President for University Communications Stephen MacCarthy.

“When we first heard about it, we contacted NYPD and were told that no Penn students were being monitored,” he wrote in an email.

“We hope and trust the University will continue to protect all members of the Penn community from undue harassment and profiling,” the MSA statement read.

NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne told the AP the monitoring only occurred in 2006 and 2007, but cases of undercover monitoring were documented from as recent as 2009.

In another report, an officer went undercover on a whitewater rafting trip with 18 Muslim students from City College of New York in 2008, according to the AP. The officer noted that the students “prayed at least four times a day, and much of the conversation was spent discussing Islam and was religious in nature,” the report said.

City College was unaware that the students were being watched.

Danish Munir, a 2009 Wharton and Engineering graduate, was a member of Penn MSA at the time the 2006 report was made.

“If the police feels there is something wrong going on, it is their job to investigate,” he said. “Is religious belief enough grounds to investigate people though? I don’t think so.”

“People can dig all they want, but there’s nothing to find here,” he added.

Samir Malik, a 2008 Wharton and College graduate and former MSA president, said the NYPD should have contacted the group if they wished to obtain any information.

“The NYPD is just trying to protect society … and they could reach out and work with us to get to the bottom of what they were looking for.”

The NYPD did not respond to requests for an interview.

“If all [the NYPD] wants to do is look at people or watch them, there’s probably not a constitutional claim for violating [the] Equal Protection [Clause] even if they used racial or religious criteria,” Penn Law professor Kermit Roosevelt said. Had the police stopped or questioned the Muslim students as a part of the surveillance, there could be a case for infringement of liberties, he added.

According to Political Science professor Rogers Smith, police are able to compile data from public information venues such as student group websites.

“[The police] are not entitled to regularly attend even public meetings or to participate undercover unless they have ‘reasonable suspicion’ that some persons at those meetings and events are involved in criminal activities,” he wrote in an email.

He added that if police had no other reason to monitor groups besides the fact that they were Muslim, then it constitutes as racial and ethnic profiling.

“If, however, they have evidence that some Muslim Student Associations have been venues for organizing illegal activities, then monitoring is permissible.”

For Wharton freshman Aly Kassim-Lakha, this incident was an opportunity to raise awareness of Islam and its perception.

“For me, it shows that people don’t necessarily understand Islam itself, and the responsibility goes both ways,” said Kassim-Lakha, who is unaffiliated with MSA.

“This isn’t something we can never fix as a society. It just takes an effort on both sides to help solve it.”

Comments (30)

What on earth??

But remember everybody, it’s BDS with its non-violent and transparent opposition to Israeli government policies who are the Nazis.

The DP editors should print another editorial screed ginning up hated of student activists lest anyone forget

Sarah Smith, weren’t you the one who tokenized two Muslim girls in your last article?

I believe you described them both as “soft-spoken” and wearing “tradition Muslim head scarves.” Obviously you and NYPD have something in common.

Grow up. Why is anyone upset the NYPD read blogs posted on the internet? If you don’t want people to read your thoughts, then keep them off the interwebs or set up controlled access.

The fact is that America still faces a significant threat from Muslims. The fine, pious gentleman that wanted to blow himself up in the U.S. Capitol building wasn’t Catholic, was he? No, he was Muslim and he is representative of the portion of Muslims who believe non-Muslims should be converted, subjugated, or killed.

To the extent that the NYPD gained intelligence by placing undercover police officers close to Muslims-students or otherwise-in order to ensure public safety, I congratulate their ingenuity.

Much is made of the fact the Muslims that were monitored were students. Who cares? Their educational status is irrelevant; being a student does not give you some kind of free pass.

Are you deluded?

It wasn’t individual members of the NYPD reading blog posts- they were expending resources and coordinating a police effort to monitor student activists based on nothing but prejudicial assumptions. Any self-professed freedom loving American should be humiliated by this, let alone anybody tired of our creeping corporate surveillance state. Only an idiot like you would think that any useful “intelligence” would be had that way and so likewise you are congratulating nothing but stupidity and waste of our resources.

As for your would be “Muslim U.S. Capitaol Bomber”- The only thing the FBI should be congratulated for is disrupting another “terror plot” that they themselves enabled and concocted in the first place. It’s one more in a long steak of the practice meant to placate muslim hating, power worshiping authoritarians in the U.S. like yourself:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants

i totally agree with common sense. it is good police work to keep an eye on those who are most likely to cause sociatal problems. you want to be angry at someone – be angry at muslim militants who, worldwide , cause such police, and i hope other intelligence organizations, to have to watch them.

you can live in fear of an overblown or non-existant “muslim threat”.

its evident that it’s our government and the fools who control it who needs to be watched

if you dont believe there is a muslim threat you really are meshugah. every terrorist activity since 9/11 was muslim.

Khader Adnan is near death. The Israeli military still have him shackled, without any charges against him.

Is that your favorite position for Muslims to be in?

Boycott “Israel” at long last.

Thank G-d somebody is monitoring them. Obviously, not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslims. I suspect that the NYPD is doing the work that the Feds are not doing. Who should they be monitoring – those Hasidic Jewish groups or maybe all those Born Again Christians? What about the Hindus or religious Catholics. Think of all the terrorists (in modern times) that those groups have produced.

Muslims are unhappy in Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq…

Muslims are happy in the US, Canada, Austria, France, the UK…

Why?

Islam has issues.

http://napoleonlive.info/did-you-know/facts-about-islam/

I wonder how many times during the monitoring the NYPD observed someone condemning violence against innocent Israeli citizens. I’m guessing not once.

I think the NYPD should be monitoring taxi drivers. I am 99% sure that my last taxi driver was Anwar Al-Awlaki. He picked me up in Union Square and when I asked to be taken to the Winter Garden Theater (so that I could catch the Mamma Mia matinée), he made some comment about killing gay people. He then subjected me to various forms of psychological torture throughout the ride, forcing me to listen to an obscure AM radio station and wafting interesting odors (such as halal mixed with b.o.) towards me, through the sliding plexiglass window between us. Then he decided it would be appropriate to pick up his wife (and two kids), who looked at me and then muttered something to him that sounded very mean…. but it was muffled by her shmata. He then tried to sell me Bvlgari cologne out of his glove compartment and even offered a free Louis Vuitton handbag in good faith and to demonstrate the honest nature of his livelihood. However, we were interrupted mid-negotiations by his friend in an adjacent cab. According to the man’s taxi license, he was Hussein Obama Bin-Biden, and you could tell from his smile that he was as trustworthy as a politician from Chicago. They spoke briefly and then Hussein offered me free healthcare in exchange for blind obedience. We soon arrived at the Winter Garden Theater, and quite surprisingly, Anwar broke out in song. At first it sounded like a prayer to Allah, but then I realized it was actually a middle-eastern rendition of “Thank You For The Music” by ABBA. I joined him in english and we harmonized. It is then that I realized that although taxi drivers can be hostile, reckless, and even downright smelly…. their love for Scandinavian disco-era love songs is an extremely redeeming factor that must be considered by their critics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfM9gQkfwyg

Why would anyone even think of monitoring the MSA? They’re just fun-loving college kids looking to have some good Jihadist fun.

(Just kidding PD. Really, just kidding.)

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/blog/244/the-muslim-students-association-and-the-jihad-network/

Gosh, why would anyone ever question the MSA? Why all the mistrust? Can’t we all just get along? Sarc/off.

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2011/March/Muslim-Student-Group-a-Gateway-to-Jihad/

Dear Mr. sas11 its looking like you are wising up ; how nice of you to admit , “ It’s BDS… who are the Nazis.” so let me get this straight pro-Palestinian clowns, with your sophomoric sarcasm can toss around terms like “ Nazi” and think nothing of it; but Dr. Gur in a nuanced essay is harshly criticized when he simply says a clear precedent for the BDS plan of boycotting Jews and Israelis is the Nazis standing in front of stores forbidding people to enter. Absolutely nothing violent about that! there was nothing “transparent” about the BDS liars either. They claimed their hate-fest was not about destroying Israel when that was ALL it was about —and replacing it with a One State solution Palestine. As for Mr. “ Boycotting Apartheid”, Khader Adnan is on a hunger strike so any medical problems he has are his own fault. He is the spokes-person for Islamic Jihad in Samaria and Judea (the so-called West Bank) so he is most definitely guilty of belonging to a radical, violent, murderous terrorist organization. Israel is fully justified in arresting him sa they have EIGHT previous times for his illegal activities. NYPD monitoring is justified because of the dangers NYC faces and the fact that some Arab and/or Muslim terrorists have in deed been radicalized by Student gruops at other Universities like the Nigerian under-wear bomber.

It pains me to see our liberties taken away by what happened during 9/11, but what choice do we have? The authorities have stopped many attacks on US interest by radical Muslims through such investigations. So which is worse: the loss of liberty or more attacks? It’s like chooing the lesser of two evils. I suppose one feeds the other. As long as this nation has dogmatic Islamic fundamentalists bent on killing innocents to make a point, such intrusion into our rights will exist. When one stops, the other will as well. What we need is an Islamic Martin Luther King or Gandi — an Islamic leader who will preach tolerance, nonviolence, and peace. Alternatively, we need a scientific breakthrough that will make fossil fuels a relic of the past, taking from the Mid East its single source of political relevance.

Why would anyone be suspicious of the MSA?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don’t lobby Congress or protest because we don’t recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it. . . . Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah.” — Muhammad Faheed, Muslim Students Association meeting, Queensborough Community College, 2003

Dear Mr. Sonntag : while your comment is somewhat pro-Israel; its unfair to link Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Gandhi ( the correct spelling). Rev. Dr. King supported Zionism and the Jewish community; Gandhi did NOT. After Kristalnacht when synagogues, stores and homes of Jews all over Germany were destroyed and many Jews were killed and wounded Gandhi wrote in a 1938 essay that Jews should stay in Germany ( to be killed by Nazis) and that Jews who had escaped to safety in Mandatory Palestine should allow themselves to be shot to death by the Arabs and their bodies should be thrown into the Sea of Galillee. It’s important to remember the real history. There will NEVER be an Islamic Gandhi any way since he was a devout Hindu. ( his anti-Semitism was NOT from his Hinduism.)

Karl, thank you for the clarification. I should have taken more time to articulate my message. My sole point was that it would be nice to see a Islamic leader rise who preached nonviolence and tolerance as did MLK and Gandhi. I didn’t mean to imply that MLK and Gandhi supported or did not support Israel. I was merely citing to their tactics, not their politics. The obvious problem, of course, is the violence contained in the Koran. It may be impossible for a nonviolent Islamic leader to have much influence given the Koran’s violent calls against so-called infidels. It’s still a dream, however.

I stumbled across The Onion after reading some of the comments here, and its recent headline made me think of you guys:

“Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon”

Dear Scott Sonntag,

I think you should know that there have been plenty of Palestinian leaders calling for non-violent resistance to Israel. When I was over there, there were non-violent demonstrations all of the time (and my friend was even writing her dissertation on them). Feel free to look upon one of her books. Just search for Julie Norman on Amazon.

The basic issue is that, as these comments make very clear, American audiences are obsessed with the image of the violent Muslim (even though, of course, many Palestinians are Christians). We love it, and can’t get enough of it. Nothing sells like the spectre of the violent Muslim.

I remember, for example, another one of my friends being very frustrated one day when she called Reuters, trying to get them to cover a Palestinian non-violent protest. She was told point-blank by Reuters that they simply were uninterested in non-violent Palestinians. They wouldn’t cover the protest.

Secondly, and I hate to point this out, but your remarks suggesting that the “violence contained in the Koran” somehow probably binds Muslims to a politics of violence is dreadfully ignorant. Not only does it assume some sort of 19th century hermeneutics, but more importantly, it doesn’t consider the extreme violence condoned by Jewish and Christian scripture (which you seem to implicitly compare the Koran to). (And such scripture, of course, provided a strong base for the thought of MLK).

I forgot to mention Elias Chacour, he’s somebody you should look at if you think there’s no Palestianian leaders calling for MLK/Gandhi like resistance to Israel (he has even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, for what it’s worth).

Again, I’m not blaming you for not knowing this. I don’t know how you would. THe U.S. press has absolutely no interest in covering such figures. It doesn’t sell. It doesn’t feed our self-righteous image of our selves.

It should also be noted that the Israelis aren’t stupid. They know they can’t afford a popular figure rising up and, looking too much like an MLK perhaps, finally providing a means for Americans to sympathize with the Palestinians. Given the marshal law in the territories, they simply lock up anybody who starts to gain a popular following (this does happen). They don’t have to put them on trial, have any evidence, etc. They just say they’re a “suspected terrorist” and they can keep him/her indefinitely. The U.S. won’t ask any questions. The lemmings who believe everything the Israeli government/military says will fully believe that such a person is a terrorist, etc. Anybody who says anything will be accused of sympathizing with terrorist and being a Nazi. Welcome to the politics of power. t

Agreed 100% with “Re: Nonviolence and Palestinians”

No issues with Islam, but definitely issues with the widespread ignorance – sadly even among bright Ivy students – in understanding it, leading to ridiculous misconceptions and prejudiced generalizations/stereotypes.

Thank-you Mr.Sonntag for so graciously accepting my correction. Gandhi’s horrific 1938 essay can be found in Walid Khalidi’s book From Haven to Conquest available at Penn’s Van Pelt library. As for the fantasy of Palestinian non-violonce “peace resistance” or whatever— 1) first of all it does not exist since “Palestinian non-violence” means stone-throwing, molotov cock-tails etc. so its a sham to begin with. 2) The end goal is the same the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel and the deaths or forced expulsion of Jews so it it does not make any differenca anyway. 3) the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was calling for the creation of a more perfect American Civil Society that included all American citizens regardless of Race “Palestinians” want to drive out all the Jews. Their call for a “state for all its citizens “ is a vicious lie since no Jews (except a few traitors) could ever be citizens of any “Palestine” so the comparison is totally irrelevant. 4) No is fooled. Every one knows “ Palestinian non-violent resistance” is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms— thus QED: the whole concept is just another rhetorical and vicious political attack on Israel. Note all Israel-Arabs ARE citizens of Israel with equal rights period end of story.