Judges question NYPD spying on N.J. Muslims
2015Michael Schreiber 2015-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 8 →
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PHILADELPHIA—Federal judges in a Jan. 13 appeals court hearing indicated that they are favorable to the premises of a suit against the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for its surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey.
The suit, Hassan v. City of New York, had been dismissed by a federal district court in February 2014.
A challenge to this decision was then brought to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, and argued by attorneys from Muslim Advocates and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
... Charlie Hebdo (continued from page 7: “The French government has ordered a mobilization of police. The objective is to create an atmosphere of”)
U.S. Constitution was “balanced” against the “national security” interests of the U.S., with disastrous results for the former.
The most heinous of all these laws were subse quently ruled unconstitutional, but only with the rise of a massive civil rights and antiwar Vietnam move ment, which rendered them impossible to enforce lest they further enrage mass sentiment opposing any government bans on free speech, free association, and freedom to assemble.
Today, the invocation of “national security” is once again used for deep incursions into democratic and human rights. The wholesale surveillance of the en tire citizenry—as revealed by Edward Snowden— as well as torture and detention, and even selected murder of American citizens through drone attacks 8 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 2015 The 11 plaintiffs in the case include a coalition of New Jersey mosques, Rutgers University students, the former principal of a school for Muslim girls, and an Army veteran of the Iraq War—all of whom have stated that the New York City police spied on them solely on account of their religious affiliation.
Since the beginning of its heightened surveillance program in 2002, the NYPD has spied on at least 20 mosques, 14 restaurants, 11 retail stores, two grade schools, and two Muslim Student Asso ciations in New Jersey alone. The depart ment has employed people to infiltrate these locations, in addition to gathering The lower court had rejected the suit last year on the grounds that “the police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without moni toring the Muslim community itself,” as Judge William J. Martini wrote in the de cision.
The appellants rejected this reasoning. “By creating a Muslim exception to the bedrock principles of equality and reli gious freedom, the lower court opinion signals that Muslims are to be secondclass citizens,” said CCR Legal Director Baher Azmy, who argued the case in the Philadelphia appeals court. “The Consti tution prohibits singling out an entire in other countries, are routinely justified by U.S. gov ernment officials while the courts grant their rubber stamp of approval.
Socialists have always been ardent defenders of free speech and all other democratic rights won in strug gle against government efforts to restrict them. We know full well that so-called hate-crime legislation will inevitably be employed to restrict the rights of radicals and socialists to freely organize and protest.
We have no illusions that the bigots organized across the United States in groups like the Ku Klux Klan, not to mention racist Tea Party fanatics or racist police and elected officials, will be punished. Indeed, capital ism intentionally keeps these rabid organizations in reserve—albeit on a short leash and on the margins of society—until they are needed to stoke the flames of murder, hate, and repression.
When that time arrives, the hate groups will be joined by the full force of capitalism’s increasingly militarized police and other repressive forces. Armed