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NYPD Spied on Muslim Clubs at Yale, Columbia, and Penn in Outlandish Search for Terrorists
Posted By Patience Haggin On February 20, 2012 @ 2:19 am In Uncategorized | 5 Comments
In the wake of IvyGate’s Hell Week, you probably thought that any non-violent Ivy student group that didn’t encourage its members to hurl folding chairs at law enforcement personnel would be safe from police department hit lists. Not so! Today, the Associated Press revealed that the NYPD has been monitoring Muslim Student Associations at 16 college campuses in the (very broadly defined) New York area, including Yale, Columbia, and Penn.
According to an internal memo obtained by AP reporters—one of the NYPD’s “Weekly MSA Reports”—NYPD Cyber-Intelligence officers conducted a “daily routine” inspection of various MSA blogs and forums and recorded which students were advertising educational conferences, among other terrorism-related activities.
But their monitoring efforts went even further: an undercover cop went on a whitewater rafting trip with Muslim students from the City College of New York in 2008 and reportedly had a student informant at Syracuse University. Yes, whitewater rafting. Because that’s where you pall around with terrorists: in a raging river! Everybody knows that. (And seriously, a student informant? That kid who you thought just showed up to the meetings for the free food was actually coming under the orders of a police force 250 miles away?)
Though the Ivy chapters were certainly on the NYPD’s watch list, it’s not clear that any of them were subject to a special amount of scrutiny. None of the more egregious (and sillier) methods of surveillance cited in the article were employed at Ivy League schools. A source from the Penn MSA told IvyGate that Penn officials have contacted the NYPD, who stated that no Penn students were being monitored. Good to know that you can just call them up and ask!
When asked why the NYPD found it necessary to keep tabs on the academic conferences and river-rafting of 20-year-old college students, the NYPD spokesman pointed out that 12 members of Muslim Student Associations have been arrested on terrorism charges.
Meaning, what? The fact that some criminals were once involved in a certain college activity makes every student who participates in that activity suspect and worthy of surveillance? The Columbia students arrested in last year’s drug bust were in fraternities, but it’s not like DEA officers are keeping tabs on the activities of every fraternity in the country. (Or maybe they are! In which case, they could start by testing the composites.)
Furthermore: NYPD’s spying program was based on the arrest records of twelve people. Twelve people, of the 1.8 million Muslims in this country. In the interpretation most sympathetic to the NYPD—in the most paranoid, misinformed, misleading interpretation of this data possible—that data could be interpreted to suggest that MSAs are radicalizing Muslims at a rate of .00067%. Wow. Because that justifies spying on all 187 MSA chapters in America—in case .001 of an MSA member gets arrested some day. Totally worth it.
Easily the best/strangest part of this whole fiasco: in an ironic twist (kind of like a classic doofus cop story), a building superintendent called 911 on undercover officers (who were staked out in an apartment near the Rutgers campus to keep watch on Rutgers students) when he suspected the officers were radicals using the apartment as a terrorist cell. FBI officials looked into it (which must have made for a hilarious encounter) and confirmed that it was merely NYPD officers spying on college students.
Which means this goes higher than the NYPD: the FBI—the federal organization that collaborates with police forces all across the nation—knew about the surveillance and condoned it. It raises the question: was the FBI overseeing similar surveillance programs all across the country? Also, if NYPD personnel were monitoring the MSA at Rutgers, why not the one at Princeton?
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5 Comments To "NYPD Spied on Muslim Clubs at Yale, Columbia, and Penn in Outlandish Search for Terrorists"
#1 Comment By Anonymous On February 20, 2012 @ 9:25 am
Right, maybe the government should just stop trying to catch terrorists altogether – so we would have had 12 more attacks, at least the government wouldn’t be wasting its efforts on a .00067% success rate, right?
#2 Comment By Anonymous On February 20, 2012 @ 2:32 pm
LOL. “12 more attacks.” *GIGANTIC EYE ROLL*
#3 Comment By Anonymous On February 20, 2012 @ 3:06 pm
Ok, I’ll admit I exaggerated. But even 1 more attack is worth preventing, and if they found 12 terrorists at least a couple of those would have probably tried to orchestrate some type of attack. The government tries to weed out those who will try to kill people. Terrorists kill people in large quantities so the government puts extra effort into finding them.
I really don’t see what you’re complaining about. The fact that somebody HASN’T bombed your school?
#4 Comment By H14 On February 22, 2012 @ 9:10 pm
This reeks WWII USA and it’s really just not fair to muslims.
#5 Comment By Sean Laguna On March 13, 2012 @ 7:38 pm
They’re complaining about the violation of civil rights against these students. The NYPD and FBI are making the assumption that these groups are more likely to be terrorists simply because they’re Muslim organizations. That’s discrimination. There’s not even a correlation between Muslims and terrorism, there has just been one terrorist attack from a fundamentalist Muslim group on the other side of the globe. There have been plenty of other bombings in the US and Europe by other religious groups/races. But, the NYPD/FBI have still singled out these students just because they’re Muslim.
You’re implying that schools with Muslim groups are more likely to be bombed with no proof of that being the case. And you’re willing to violate the civil rights of Muslim Americans in the process of “preventing” these inherently unfounded attacks?