A New Jersey Muslim group is suing the NYPD over its surveillance of Muslim adults and children at schools, mosques and other public places beginning in 2002. The surveillance was unwarranted, invasive and “bad policing,†Muslim Advocates president Farhana Khera said during a press conference. Click below to read the rest of the story.
The group filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey in Newark. The suit asks for a court-order that declares the practices unconstitutional and orders the department to destroy any related surveillance.
The advocacy group says the attorneys general in New York and New Jersey both declined to investigate the case.
But U.S. Army Reserve specialist Farhaj Hassan, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, called the NYPD’s surveillance program a “slap in the face†to soldiers who swear to defend the constitution.
“The NYPD decided to be lazy and group everybody [together\] The same thing happened in Germany,†Hassan said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has defended the practice as justified and necessary to counter-terrorism work.
“I would just refer them to the New Jersey Attorney General’s report that found no wrongdoing,†Kelly said Wednesday.
