This means that anyone attending the prayer service can potentially be investigated and go under surveillance. PHOTO: AFP
The label has allowed the department to spy on imams and record sermons without having specific evidence of criminal activities.
This means that anyone attending the prayer service is part of organisation and can potentially be investigated and go under surveillance.
As per confidential police documents and interviews, NYPD has initiated more than a dozen “terrorism enterprise investigations” into mosques following the terror attacks on World Trade Centers (WTC) in New York.
Although mosques have never been charged for a criminal activity in New York, many TEIs have expanded to continue the on-going surveillance. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.
The confidential document also reveals that NYPD investigated numerous innocent Muslims and kept their information in secret files. According to interviews with federal law enforcement officials, as NYPD conducts at least a dozen enterprise investigations, FBI never did one.
Following the strategy, NYPD has also sent numerous undercover officers into mosques in order to plant informants in the Islamic institutions.
The documents were disclosed in a lawsuit against NYPD accusing the department over racial profiling while combating crime. Earlier this month, a judge ruled that the department's use of the stop-and-frisk tactic was unconstitutional.
Two groups in the US, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have sued NYPD stating that the investigation programs are unlawful and an obstacle for Muslims to practice their faith with freedom.
These accusations have been denied by the Police Commissioner and Mayor Mike Bloomberg stating that the police do not target people without a lead.
The NYPD spokesman also refused to comment on the matter.
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@Parvez: Not really. And unfortunately, those at whom his message was most targeted didn't get it and their successive generations don't even know anything about him, except the US has a holiday in January for his birthday.
History from 625 AD onward is proof enough!
Spying is the new hobby of Americans, be it on their friends, natives or terrorists. Snowden's revelations tell the story.
Can India show similar guts and honesty in declaring at least some of the known terror havens masquerading as mosques but teaching hate as terror centres.
We in India and Pakistan are used to point fingers and find faults with others. We turn a blind eye to what we do to inflict self injury. Are we not responsible for allowing the use of our religious places of peace and spirituality for inflammatory and hatred filled speeches?
Many imams of mosques in the US have been caught preaching violence and Jihad in the past 10 years. Some mosques have even been closed down for supporting terrorism. When a community breeds terrorists, one can't complain about the western countries trying to prevent terror attacks. It is also important to realize that no such monitoring of mosques had been conducted prior to the 9/11 attack.
Seems like US is officially moving from Racial Profiling to Discriminatory Religious Profiling !
I don't mind one bit. These mosques should have nothing to hide. Muslims are in complete denial about the radicalization problem within the community, so the only alternative is having someone else watch over us.
@sami: Martin Luther King Jr had a dream ...............and it came true.
US shows the way. The rest of the world should follow. One can pray whatever god he/she likes from and within the four walls of his/her home, but the this singular urge to congregate on prayer is a pointer to a herd mentality that seeks security in numbers. So typical of people suffering from inferiority complex, intellectual and material.
And all conservative facists should compare the Muslims killed in the US in the last 10 years with the no of Muslims killed in Pakistan in the same time.
it helps American Administration eradicate unemployment.
Since religion has become the most profitable industry and mosques have replaced brand names in muslim countries therefore no wonder why mosques are being labelled as terrorist organization. As long as we will give charge of religion to power hungry people we will have these issues. pursuit of power, lust for money becomes leathal when religion is used as a tool to disguise one's crime.
Whats wrong with this? Nothing! This is how you ensure security of all citizens!
@Dajjal... Your dream will never come true..
@Blunt:
Big difference between listening in on a conversation and burning down houses/killing people. Your analogy is off base.
Having been through couple of Friday prayers / congregations there and witnessing the quality and contents of lectures delivered by the mullahs and tolerated by the people, no wonder that they question the sanity of participants, anyone would suspect the ultimate goal of this. I'd be pretty uncertain and suspect anyone of us seeing the 'ultimate light' and go berserk with it. After all, where did all their Afias & Salmans came from?
Pakistan should take similar steps, but care should be taken to increase the surveillance of only those mosques which are suspected to promote violence and hatred.