NYPD

NYPD Spying On Muslims Challenged

February 19, 2018 By Chris Fry, Workers.org Educate! Islamaphobia, NYPD, spying

Two Muslim men have challenged the New York Police Department’s cloak of secrecy over NYPD surveillance of Muslim mosques and student groups. The men’s case went to the New York Court of Appeals here on Feb. 6, with more than 30 supporters filling the spectator seats. The men’s lawyer demanded to know why New York state’s Freedom of Information Law request for the spy documents was met with an evasive NYPD response that it could “neither confirm nor deny” that such documents even existed. The NYPD has a long history of spying on civil rights organizers and anti-war activists, as well as leftist organizations and members. A 1971 federal lawsuit put in place guidelines that supposedly prohibit the NYPD from collecting information on political speech unless it is related to “terrorism.”

NYPD Has 30 Days To Turn Over Surveillance Of BLM Protesters To Court

November 30, 2017 Stephen Rex Brown, nydailynews.com Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), NYPD, Protests

By Stephen Rex Brown for The Daily News - The NYPD has 30 days to turn over surveillance videos of Black Lives Matter protesters after a Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday that the department flouted his previous order to disclose the records. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez, who issued the contempt of court ruling, stopped short of immediately imposing sanctions on the police. Instead, he said the NYPD could "purge" the contempt ruling by turning over more material related to the monitoring of protesters at Grand Central Terminal in November 2014 and January 2015 within a month. Mendez first ordered the NYPD to turn over records in February — but thus far the department has only turned over one blurry cell phone video and other limited information. The NYPD's interpretation of the term "multimedia records" was "disingenuous," Mendez wrote. The NYPD chose "to use their interpretation over what this court actually stated," Mendez wrote, adding that the department "failed to substantially comply" with his order. The city’s Law Department immediately cried foul, saying it is reviewing its legal options and is “deeply concerned with this ruling and the dilemma in which it places the city.” “On the one hand, we are constrained by genuine security concerns from explaining publicly how disclosure could endanger the lives and safety of undercover officers,” a Law Department spokesman said. “On the other hand, we were not afforded an opportunity to explain those concerns to the court in a non-public setting.” The case, brought by protester James Logue, challenged the NYPD's denial of a Freedom of Information Law request for information on its monitoring of rallies after the police killings of Eric Garner in Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

NYPD, Prosecutor & NYC Conspired to Destroy Black and Brown Lives

August 25, 2017 Shaun King, www.medium.com Educate! NYPD, Police abuse, police brutality

By Shaun King for Medium. “Stop and frisk has been banned, but police in the 42nd precinct are actually doing something far worse. They are setting quotas and goals for the number of people each officer must arrest. If you don’t meet or exceed the quotas, you feel the wrath of your supervisors. Instead of rejecting the quotas, some officers are embracing them and rounding up people, particularly teenage children, for crimes they know good and well they didn’t commit — locking them away sometimes for days, weeks, months, or even years at a time — then simply dismissing the charges. This isn’t just a few rogue cops, but an entire precinct is doing this and they are partnering with the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to make it happen.

Transparency Needed, But Fought, Over NYPD Spying

June 23, 2017 Josmar Trujillo, www.fair.org Resist! NYPD, spying, Transparency

By Josmar Trujillo for FAIR - Last week, the New York City Council held hearings on proposed legislation calling on the New York Police Department to be more transparent with how they surveil and spy on the public. Police officials, as they often do, proceeded to tell local lawmakers to get lost. Requests for more information and possibly a public comment period on NYPD spying tactics, which have reached sci-fi levels, were called “insane” and met with suggestions that ISIS terrorists would be given a “roadmap” to attacking the city. Conservative media outlets, predictably, came out shrieking in defense of the police and of surveillance. The New York Post (6/18/17) published the department’s testimony from the hearing and called it an op-ed, literally regurgitating the police line word for word for its readers. Not to be left behind by their fellow Rupert Murdoch employees, editorialists at the Wall Street Journal (“A Terrorist’s Guide to New York City: The Left Would Show Jihadists How the Cops Prevent Attacks,” 6/19/17) chimed in with admiration for police and full-throated disgust at those pushing the legislation

NYPD Sued Over Facial Recognition Program

May 7, 2017 Ava Kofman, www.theintercept.com Resist! Facial Recognition, NYPD, Police abuse, Privacy, Surveillance

By Ava Kofman for the Intercept. Researchers at Georgetown University law school filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the New York City Police Department for the agency’s refusal to disclose documents about its longstanding use of face recognition technology. The NYPD’s face recognition system, which has operated in the department’s Real Time Crime Center since at least 2011, allows officers to identify a suspect by searching against databases of stored facial photos. Records pertaining to the NYPD’s program were requested in January 2016 by researchers at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology as part of The Perpetual Line-Up, a year-long study on law enforcement uses of facial recognition technology. After receiving public records from more than 90 agencies across the country, the study found that one in every two American adults is enrolled in a criminal face recognition network and that “few agencies have instituted meaningful protections to prevent the misuse of the technology.”

NYPD Infiltrated Black Lives Matter, Got Access To Messages

April 5, 2017 George Joseph, www.theguardian.com Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), NYPD, Surveillance

By George Joseph for The Guardian - Undercover officers in the New York police department infiltrated small groups of Black Lives Matter activists and gained access to their text messages, according to newly released NYPD documents obtained by the Guardian. The records, produced in response to a freedom of information lawsuit led by New York law firm Stecklow & Thompson, provide the most detailed picture yet of the sweeping scope of NYPD surveillance during mass protests over the death of Eric Garner in 2014 and 2015. Lawyers said the new documents raised questions about NYPD compliance with city rules. The documents, mostly emails between undercover officers and other NYPD officials, follow other disclosures that the NYPD regularly filmed Black Lives Matter activists and sent undercover personnel to protests.

Disturbing Secret History Of NYPD Officer Who Killed Eric Garner

March 24, 2017 Jack Jenkins and Carimah Townes, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Eric Garner, NYPD, police brutality

By Jack Jenkins and Carimah Townes for Think Progress - On July 17, 2014, NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo wrapped his arms around Eric Garner’s neck and squeezed. He held tight as his colleagues slammed Garner, 43 years old and asthmatic, to the ground. Garner, who was unarmed at the time, gasped for air, arm outstretched, saying “I can’t breathe” over and over as officers piled on top of him. Then he was silent. The next day, when the New York Daily News released video of the encounter, Garner had already died from neck and chest compression. His death sparked national protests about police violence against the black community, and his final words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement.

NYPD Must Release All Files About Undercover Spying On Black Lives Matter Protests

February 9, 2017 Staff, www.rt.com Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), NYPD, Protests, spying, Surveillance

By Staff of RT - A New York Supreme Court judge has ruled that the New York Police Department must comply with an information request for files and recordings of undercover surveillance of a Black Lives Matter protest that didn’t result in any arrests. The NYPD had sought to withhold its records from activist James Logue, who had attended a Black Lives Matter protest at Grand Central Station in November 2014. Logue filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the files after noticing both uniformed and plainclothes officers “regularly and openly recording events as they were taking place,” court documents said.

Judge Calls For Additional Safeguards In NYPD Surveillance Rules

November 1, 2016 Staff, www.aclu.org Resist! Islamophobia, Muslims, NYC, NYPD, Surveillance

BY Staff of ACLU - NEW YORK - In a legal challenge to the New York City Police Department’s surveillance of American Muslims, a federal judge issued a ruling calling for alterations to a landmark lawsuit settlement as a condition of approving the settlement. The alterations proposed by the judge would further strengthen the settlement’s ability to protect New York Muslims and others from discriminatory and unjustified surveillance.

Walking Tour Of New York’s Massive Surveillance Network

October 2, 2016 Cora Currier, www.theintercept.com Educate! Mass Surveillance, New York City (NYC), NYPD, Privacy

By Cora Currier for The Intercept. New York City - Earlier this month, on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the lower tip of Manhattan was thronged with soldiers in uniform, firefighters marching with photos of lost friends pinned to their backpacks, and tourists bumbling around the new mall at the World Trade Center. Firetrucks and police cars ringed Zuccotti Park and white ribbons adorned the iron fence around the churchyard on Broadway. Trash cans were closed up, with signs announcing “temporary security lockdown.” So it felt a bit risky to be climbing up a street pole on Wall Street to closely inspect a microwave radar sensor, or to be lingering under a police camera, pointing and gesturing at the wires and antenna connected to it. Yet it was also entirely appropriate to be doing just that...

Report Need To Rein In NYPD Surveillance Of US Muslims

August 25, 2016 Staff, www.nyclu.org Resist! ACLU, New York (NY), NYPD

By Staff of NYCLU - The NYPD Inspector General today released a report that examined the NYPD’s compliance with the HandschuGuidelines -- which protect New Yorkers’ lawful political and religious activities from unwarranted surveillance – while investigating a sample of cases closed between 2010 and 2015 that mostly involved American Muslims. The report found that the NYPD failed to adhere to important safeguards that protect people’s rights and the integrity of investigations

Cop Secretly Records Supervisor Telling Him To Racially Profile

July 15, 2016 Nathan Wellman, www.usuncut.com Educate! NYPD, Police, Racial Profiling

By Nathan Wellman for U.S. Uncut - A recording of an NYPD officer appearing to pressure a transit officer to specifically target black men has just been released by Gawker. The recording was provided to the New York Daily News for a story released in January, but the actual audio was not released to the public until now. Although the full recording is 36 minutes long, only a two-minute excerpt has been released.

Hillary Clinton And Chuck Schumer Teaming Up With NYPD

June 13, 2016 Sarah Lazare, www.alternet.org Educate! Hillary Clinton, Militarization, Militarized police, NYPD

By Sarah Lazare for AlterNet - Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton are teaming up with the NYPD to request high levels of funding for a federal “counter-terror” program that is directly bankrolling the militarization of police forces nationwide. To secure the funds, they are invoking the threat of terrorism and exploiting the climate of fear and incitement that has come to define the 2016 election cycle. At issue is the the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), which was created in 2003 as a Department of Homeland Security grant program aimed at assisting “high-threat, high-density Urban Areas...

NYPD’s Arrests Of Citizen Journalists Should Spark Outrage

March 28, 2016 Josmar Trujillo, www.fair.org Resist! Journalism, NYPD, Police

By Josmar Trujillo for FAIR - Last week, New York City police officers arrested four well-known activists for filming them. Copwatchers—people who regularly film and document police activity—have often been targeted by cops who don’t want to be recorded, despite reminders that recording police interactions is legal in the city. While legal protections for filming police are still unclear in some parts of the country, the invaluable role that copwatchers play as journalists—acting as the eyes, ears and media of the streets—deserves to be recognized.

No Federal Charges Against Officer Who Shot Ramarley Graham

March 9, 2016 Lia Eustachewich, www.nypost.com Educate! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), NYPD, police brutality

By Lia Eustachewich for New York Post - A federal grand jury will not be convened to weigh criminal charges in the police-involved shooting death of Bronx teen Ramarley Graham, officials announced Tuesday in closing the 2012 case. US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office had been investigating since 2014 whether Graham’s civil rights were violated – but concluded there was “insufficient evidence to meet the high burden of proof required for a federal criminal civil rights prosecution.”

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