NYPD Commissioner defends Surveillance and Monitoring of Muslim American Communities

by guest blogger Gordon Shumway.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/raymond-kelly-defends-spying-calling-essential-safety-strategy-city-article-1.1032607

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/muslim-leaders-rally-in-support-of-police-dept/?scp=5&sq=racism&st=cse

The NY Daily News article deals with Commissioner Ray Kelly of the NYPD defending his department's surveillance and monitoring of Muslim Americans in New York City and Muslim students on college campuses across the east coast of the United States, while the New York Times city room blog article deals with Muslim American Leaders who showed their support Monday morning in front of the NYPD headquarters to defend the actions of the NYPD toward the Muslim American communities which included the surveillance and monitoring of said communities with the intent of catching terrorists. I picked the second article based on the content to further the conversation on the subject matter.

In the first article Commissioner Ray Kelly spoke to a group of people inside the Cipriani Wall Street Ballroom, while there were people outside protesting, asking for his resignation. What people are not quick to point out is the NYPD is stereotyping Muslims and people of middle eastern decent by doing this sort of surveillance and or monitoring. When Commissioner Kelly says “The Police Department uses many of the same methods to find and stop terrorists that we use to arrest drug dealers, human traffickers and gang leaders,” I wonder what exactly he means by that, and whether or not similar actions toward different minorities are being done for these categories as well.

In the second article Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser who narrated the propaganda film “The Third Jihad” (which was used as a training video for the NYPD), spoke in front of the NYPD head quarters defending their surveillance and monitoring of Muslim American communities in New York and across state lines. Dr Jasser says “We are not here to criticize the N.Y.P.D., but rather to thank them for the monitoring of extremists that the Muslims should be doing,”. Should they? I mean if anyone sees anything suspicious they should report it, but since when is it the Muslim communities' distinct responsibility to keep tabs on each other and make sure no one's a terrorist? Dr. Jasser later says in the article “In no way do we want to be spied on... But this is not about spying. This is about monitoring and public programs.” Actually it is about spying. Until last November, these communities had no idea this was going on. Just because the people who flew the p lanes into the twin towers just happened to be Muslim and from the Middle East, does not mean that everyone from that religion or region wants to do the same, and when you monitor and spy on those people, it kind of shows that you feel this way. Although it is great the NYPD was capable of stopping “more than a dozen terror plots since 9/11”, it is rather disappointing that a group of people needs to be singled out to do so. I mean would they have been able to stop these plots without the surveillance and monitoring of the whole community? I think this is an important question that deserves to be answered.