Court backs NYPD spying on Muslims
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SOCIALIST ACTION Closing news date: March 10, 2014 Socialist Action (ISSN 0747-4237) is published monthly by Socialist Action Publishing Association, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
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SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 2014 3 On Feb. 20, U.S. District Judge William Martini dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Mus lim Advocates against NYPD/CIA spying on the Muslim communities of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of an army veteran, a council of New Jersey Muslim religious leaders, and an association of Muslim stu dent groups in the wake of the revelations of police misconduct enumerated in a spe cial Associated Press investigative report in August 2011.
The AP report brought to light NYPD doc uments that proved that stakeouts were set designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor.
Name City State up in New Jersey to monitor those eating at Middle Eastern restaurants, that informants were sent on the ski trips of Muslim Student Association chapters, and that small com munities meeting for religious observance in a residential home in Connecticut be came the object of scrutiny.
Students at 16 universities in the North east were victimized by such activity. In none of these cases was any threat of crimi nal activity asserted. Instead, the sweeping surveillance was instigated as part of a mas sive effort to gather seemingly innocuous information with the hope of finding an ex Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder Address Zip cuse for the intelligence services to respond. The data collection disturbingly paralleled a rise in government entrapment of MuslimAmericans as part of their domestic so-called “War on Terror.”
Center for Constitutional Rights spokes person Baher Azmey told the Bergen County Record that it “gives legal sanction to the targeted discrimination of Muslims anywhere and everywhere in this country, without limitation, for no other reason than their religion.”
Judge Martini’s decision will be appealed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third • Ashland, Ore.: damonjure@earthlink. net • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860) 478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.: [email protected]. www.thenorthernworker.blogspot. com • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 • LOUISVILLE, KY: redlotus51@yahoo. com, (502) 451-2193 • Madison, Wis.:
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ercised this leverage despite the great risk to them selves and their careers, instead of relying on a broken grievance procedure. For this act of solidarity all 250 workers who walked off the job are being threatened with the loss of their livelihoods.
Shop-floor actions like this were once the norm in the labor movement, and gave workers a measure of protection against management harassment and contract violations. Reactionary labor laws and weak union leadership have made such workplace actions nearly extinct. Even when unions engage in contract strikes, the bosses courts make them ineffective by is suing injunctions limiting picketing. In effect, the law has made the labor movement’s best tactic illegal.
In order to build a fighting labor movement, workers will have to engage in collective action that challenges the bosses’ laws. The brave UPS workers in local 804 have provided an example for how workers can col lectively challenge such laws. The fate of these 250 workers will have consequences far beyond a trucking barn in Queens. All who stand on the side of working people must take up their fight.
Local 804 is asking supporters to circulate paper pe titions and sign an on-line petition to defend the brave