This is a tough call, except for the pesky fact that the feds are using the NYPD to do their domestic surveillance work for them, or so it seems.
NEW YORK (AP) — One autumn morning in Buffalo, N.Y., a college student named Adeela Khan logged into her email and found a message announcing an upcoming Islamic conference in Toronto.
Khan clicked “forward,” sent it to a group of fellow Muslims at the University at Buffalo, and promptly forgot about it.
But that simple act on Nov. 9, 2006, was enough to arouse the suspicion of an intelligence analyst at the New York Police Department, 300 miles away, who combed through her post and put her name in an official report. Marked “SECRET” in large red letters, the document went all the way to Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s office.
The report, along with other documents obtained by The Associated Press, reveals how the NYPD’s intelligence division focused far beyond New York City as part of a surveillance program targeting Muslims.
The reason it is a tough call is because you’ll note the email was sent by a person living in Buffalo N.Y., yet intercepted, read and logged by the NYPD, which the last time I looked, doesn’t have jurisdiction in Buffalo. So how did that happen? How did a student, forwarding a message, something we all do- and trust me, a bunch were and are anti-something- end up in a secret report? (The Left reading needs to pay attention, it counts for anti- Bush statements, anti- Obama statements, anti-government statements, ANYTHING deemed suspicious by people who tend to be suspicious of everything.) I spent some time in this assignment and it is a tough place to be for even the best intentioned professional law enforcement officers. They understand now that a threat picked up ten miles away or ten thousand miles away could end up in their backyard in a matter of days. There are no “borders” anymore. However, that said, it puts even more pressure on the professionals to make sure all the checks and balances are in place. There has to be an acceptance of the fact that life is dangerous and imperfect and the police aren’t going to catch everyone. The only alternative would be to basically shut our free society down completely, like N. Korea, and monitor everyone’s movements and activities. And that isn’t going to happen, at least not right now.
Besides, as the good people at the NYPD are trying to really get a handle on the threat level, they are thwarted by certain political activities of their own government like the Fast and Furious. Creating chaos is not the legitimate function of a government- period. But the NYPD may be a little too aggressive as it has put its people in undercover location outside its jurisdiction. That is bad. Remember my position on this, “Who watches the watchers?” Has anyone asked the basic question, “How did the NYPD people put their undercover in other cities and states? Under what jurisdictional agreements?”
The AP first reported in October that the NYPD had placed informants or undercover officers in the Muslim Student Associations at City College, Brooklyn College, Baruch College, Hunter College, City College of New York, Queens College, La Guardia Community College and St. John’s University. All of those colleges are within the New York City limits.
A person familiar with the program, who like others insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it, said the NYPD also had a student informant at Syracuse.
Police also were interested in the Muslim student group at Rutgers, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 2009, undercover NYPD officers had a safe house in an apartment not far from campus. The operation was blown when the building superintendent stumbled upon the safe house and, thinking it was some sort of a terrorist cell, called the police emerency dispatcher.
The FBI responded and determined that monitoring Rutgers students was one of the operation’s objectives, current and former federal officials said.
The Rutgers police chief at the time, Rhonda Harris, would not discuss the fallout. In a written statement, university spokesman E.J. Miranda said: “The university was not aware of this at the time and we have nothing to add on this matter.”
Another NYPD intelligence report from Jan. 2, 2009, described a trip by three NYPD officers to Buffalo, where they met with a high-ranking member of the Erie County Sheriff’s Department and agreed “to develop assets jointly in the Buffalo area, to act as listening posts within the ethnic Somalian community.”
The sheriff’s department official noted “that there are some Somali Professors and students at SUNY-Buffalo and it would be worthwhile to further analyze that population,” the report says.
Browne said the NYPD did not follow that recommendation. A spokesman for the university, John DellaContrada, said the NYPD never contacted the administration. Sheriff’s Departments spokeswoman Mary Murray could not immediately confirm the meeting or say whether the proposal went any further.
A real reporter, looking to expose a possible police abuse of power, would be smart to look in this direction. Not to jam up the street cops or UC’s, they are legitimately thinking they are doing the right thing, but to ask a very basic Constitutional question- “How is that happening?” At what point is talking on the Internet or meeting with fellow humans of a certain persuasion rise to the level of being investigated as a possible threat?
Oddly, as I write this, my kids and I just finished playing paintball at a site in the country. The owner made a point of reading a document that he said was from the government stating what it thought was potential domestic terrorist concerns, which included people assembling and making or fixing up location where they “war gamed” and developed strategies for offense and defense. The list included paintballers. Think about the level of paranoia that drives someone WITH POWER in the government to list paintball as a potential terrorist threat. One of the kids from the church group wanted to take a group photo. I suggested we all look up and smile at the passing satellite. We all looked up and said, “Hi Janet!” while waving. It was all in good fun, but the fear generated by overzealous policy makers and law enforcement is real. At what point do we pull on the reigns and say, “Who Nelly, you’ve done good, but you’ve gone too far.”
Just saying…
