A lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s extensive surveillance of American Muslim communities in New York and New Jersey was filed on June 6, 2012 by a group of New Jersey residents, mosques, and other organizations.  It accuses the NYPD of violating their constitutional rights by targeting them for surveillance on the basis of their religion, national origin and race. Since August 2011, the Associated Press (AP) has reported on the extensive NYPD spying programs that took place in New York and New Jersey.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs stated they found it necessary to sue in order “to affirm the principle that individuals may not be singled out for intrusive investigation and pervasive surveillance simply because they profess a certain faith.” The lawsuit also seeks a court order blocking the NYPD from spying on New Jersey residents based on their faith alone, and expunging all records on New Jersey Muslims compiled by the NYPD’s demographics unit over the last decade.
“The facts are just so compelling, what the NYPD is doing is egregious. It may be going on in other law enforcement agencies, but the AP reports are a smoking gun that they are targeting people based on religion,” says Glenn Katon, legal director of Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco based advocacy group that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The surveillance was the subject of a series by the Associated Press that revealed the NYPD intelligence division infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups, and investigated hundreds of people who committed no crimes. It reportedly targeted entire neighborhoods, tracking the daily life of where people ate, prayed and got their hair cut. Some reports show the NYPD took pictures of an elementary school for girls and kept tabs on grocery stores that sold food products labeled as “halal.”
“America is not safer when we spend valuable law enforcement resources on investigating the innocent multitudes rather than identifying the guilty few,” said Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ).