Court Gives NYPD Green Light to Conduct Surveillance of Muslims
Federal Trial Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging NYPD’s Spying on Muslim Americans
Ruling is a modern day version of the discredited Korematsu which allowed internment of Japanese Americans
February 20, 2014, Newark and New York – On February 20, 2014 a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the New York City Police Department’s broad surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey. In a summary 10-page opinion, and without oral argument, the case was dismissed for lack of standing and because the court considered plaintiffs’ claims of discrimination from NYPD’s Muslim surveillance program not “plausible.”
Muslim Advocates and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) case, Hassan v. City of New York, was brought on behalf of a broad group of American Muslims from a variety of backgrounds – including a decorated Iraq war veteran and the former principal of a grade school for Muslim girls – who have been subjected to invasive NYPD spying. The City had argued that the events of 9/11 justified broad surveillance of any and all New Jersey Muslims, without any indication of wrongdoing. Hassan is the first direct legal challenge to the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey.
“In addition to willfully ignoring the harm that our innocent clients suffered from the NYPD’s illegal spying program, by upholding the NYPD’s blunderbuss Muslim surveillance practices, the court’s decision gives legal sanction to the targeted discrimination of Muslims anywhere and everywhere in this country, without limitation, for no other reason than their religion,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy. “The ruling is a modern day version of the discredited Korematsu decision allowing the wholesale internment of Japanese Americans based solely on their ancestry. It is a troubling and dangerous decision.”
Since 2002, the NYPD has spied on at least 20 mosques, 14 restaurants, 11 retail stores, two grade schools, and two Muslim Student Associations in New Jersey. This monitoring has included video surveillance, photographing, community mapping, and infiltration. Moreover, internal documents, including a list of 28 “ancestries of interest,” reveal that the NYPD used racial and ethnic backgrounds as proxies to identify and target adherents to the Muslim faith. After more than a decade in operation, the surveillance program has produced not a single lead on terrorist activity.
“The fight is not over by any means. The surveillance program violates the Constitution, and we are confident that this decision will not hold up to review upon appeal,” said Glenn Katon, legal director of Muslim Advocates. “The NYPD’s blatantly discriminatory program has hurt the lives of many innocent Americans—moms who fear sending their children to school, students who simply want to pray, and Muslim-owned businesses that have lost customers.”
Hassan was initially filed by Muslim Advocates. The Center for Constitutional Rights joined as co-counsel in December, 2012. Ravinder S. Bhalla of Florio, Perrucci, Steinhardt & Fader, LLC serves as local counsel.
The court’s ruling is here.
For more information on the case, visitwww.muslimadvocates.org/endspying and http://www.ccrjustice.org/hassan.
Common Dreams reports that the judge blamed the Associated Press reporting on the NYPD surveillance for the damage done to Muslims. They wrote: “The judge went on to argue that the Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press investigations of the NYPD’s spying on Muslim communities — not the surveillance itself — caused harm to the plaintiffs. He wrote,
None of the Plaintiffs’ injuries arose until after the Associated Press released unredacted, confidential NYPD documents and articles expressing its own interpretation of those documents. Nowhere in the Complaint do Plaintiffs allege that they suffered harm prior to the unauthorized release of the documents by the Associated Press. This confirms that Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries flow from the Associated Press’s unauthorized disclosure of the documents. The harms are not “fairly traceable” to any act of surveillance.”
Muslim Advocates is a national legal advocacy and educational organization working on the frontlines of civil rights to guarantee freedom and justice for Americans of all faiths. Through high impact lawsuits, policy advocacy, and community education, Muslim Advocates serves as a resource to empower communities and ensures that the American Muslim community is heard by the courts and leaders at the highest level of government. Visit Muslim Advocates at www.muslimadvocates.org and follow @muslimadvocates.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
Below is the Center for Constitutional Rights summary of the case.
Hassan v. City of New York
Synopsis
Hassan v. City of New York, filed on June 6, 2012 in federal court in New Jersey, was brought on behalf of several New Jersey plaintiffs who were targeted and surveilled by the New York Police Department (NYPD) solely because of their religious affiliation. Among the eleven Plaintiffs are a decorated Iraq war veteran, current and former Rutgers University students, the parent organization of the Muslim Student Associations of Rutgers University (Newark and New Brunswick campuses), a coalition of New Jersey mosques, and the owners and proprietors of a grade-school for Muslim girls. This disparate group of individuals and organizations share just one characteristic: their Muslim affiliation. That fact alone led the NYPD to target and surveil them in clear violation of bedrock U.S. constitutional principles.
Status
This case is now before the United States District Court District of New Jersey. Most recently, the Center for Constitutional Rights, along with co-counsel, Muslim Advocates, filed the Plaintiffs’opposition to the City’s Motion to Dismiss on January 25, 2013, and the City filed a reply on February 25, 2013. On February 20, 2014, the Court issued an opinion and order granting the City’s Motion to Dismiss.
Description
In a Pulitzer-prize winning series of stories released in 2011, the Associated Press revealed that after the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD established a sprawling and secretive human mapping and surveillance program that targeted Muslim American communities in New York, New Jersey, and beyond, exclusively on the basis of their religious affiliation. The NYPD monitored and/or infiltrated almost every aspect of Muslim life, from mosques and student associations, to halaal butcher shops, restaurants, and private citizens. Internal NYPD documents confirm that the surveillance program was not tied to suspicion of criminality. And unsurprisingly, after more than a decade in operation, the surveillance program produced no leads to terrorist activity. Hassan v. City of New York is the first ever case brought on behalf of Muslim Americans who were unlawfully targeted and surveilled under this program.
There is no dispute that the NYPD’s goal – both ambitious and chilling – was to create a human mapping system that accounted for and monitored Muslims all along the Eastern Seaboard and beyond. The techniques it employed included video surveillance, photographing, and generating reports and community maps. In addition, the NYPD deployed officers to infiltrate locations frequented by Muslims. Without any suspicion of criminal activity, NYPD officers engaged in pretextual conversations to elicit even the most mundane details about the lives of Muslim Americans. No Muslim individual or entity appears to have been beyond suspicion. For example, Zaimah Abdur-Rahim, a Newark resident and named plaintiff, was surveilled by the NYPD because she operates a grade-school for Muslim girls. NYPD officers recorded details about the school, such as the fact that it was run from Abdur-Rahim’s home and that its students were predominantly African-American.
The racial or ethnic background of Muslim Americans was important to the NYPD because it used those classifications as a proxy to identify and target adherents of the Muslim faith. This, too, is spelled out in the NYPD’s internal documents, which list 28 “ancestries of interest” that are – to the NYPD – deserving of additional suspicion and scrutiny. Among those ancestries of interests are Egyptian, Pakistani, Somali, Sudanese, and an array of other Asian, Middle Eastern, and African ancestries that together comprise roughly 80% of the world’s Muslim population. (Seemingly oblivious to the dark historical irony, the NYPD also listed “American Black Muslim” among the “ancestries of interest.”) It is clear that the NYPD used ancestry as a proxy for religion because the NYPD exempted members of listed ancestries when they were not affiliated with the Muslim faith.
The NYPD’s program contravenes decades of civil rights precedent and challenges bedrock, cherished constitutional principles: among them equal protection under the law and the First Amendment guarantee of the freedom of religion. Plaintiffs have asked the United States District Court to declare that the NYPD’s program is unconstitutional on those bases, and to order the NYPD to immediately terminate the surveillance of the Plaintiffs. The Plaintiffs have also asked the Court to order the NYPD to destroy any records that have been surreptitiously generated about the Plaintiffs and to award financial compensation for the economic harms that have resulted from the NYPD’s discriminatory conduct. This case is now in pre-trial litigation. The Plaintiffs are defending the City’s attempt to have the case thrown out before the merits of the case are heard in open court.
Timeline
2002: NYPD begins to map, target, and surveil every aspect of daily Muslim life in New York, New Jersey and beyond.
Summer 2011: Associated Press reports on the NYPD’s surveillance program and Demographics Unit
June 6, 2012: Complaint filed on behalf of Plaintiffs
October 3, 2012: First Amended Complaint filed on behalf of Plaintiffs
December 6, 2012: The City files a Motion to Dismiss inHassan v. City of New York
January 25, 2013: Plaintiffs file their Opposition to the City’s Motion to Dismiss
February 25, 2013: The City files their Reply in Support of their Motion to Dismiss
February 20, 2014: The District Court issued an opinion andorder granting the City’s Motion to Dismiss.
Attached Files
- Hassan – First Amended Complaint (10.3.2012)
- Hassan – Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (12.5.2012)
- Hassan – Plaintiffs’ Response to Motion to Dismiss (1.25.2013)
- Hassan – Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (2.25.2013)
- Hassan – Opinion Granting Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (2.21.2014).pdf
- Hassan – Order Dismissing the Case (2.21.2014).pdf