[ May 12, 2024 ]
More coverage of our critical SION International Freedom of Speech Congress, September 11th. Here is the video of Cliff Kincaid, Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism. AIM, Accuracy in Media, is the nation's leading conservative watchdog group for fairness, balance and accuracy in news reporting.
Cliff Kincaid's presentation is hard-hitting, very powerful. He eviscerates the AP and other leading media organizations, which are on a jihad to disarm NYPD law enforcement and counter terror initiatives. Watch the whole thing.
NYPD eyed 250-plus mosques, student groups
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Documents shed new light on sweeping
intelligence operations of New York police force
By Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, Associated Press
In
this photo made Aug. 18, 2011, people pass below a New York Police
Department security camera, upper left, which is above a mosque on
Fulton St., in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in New
York. The New York Police Department collected intelligence on more than
250 mosques and Muslim student groups in and around New York, often
using undercover officers and informants to canvas the Islamic
population of America s largest city, according to officials and
confidential, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.(AP
Photo/Bebeto Matthews)(Credit: AP)The
New York Police Department collected intelligence on more than 250
mosques and Muslim student groups in and around New York, often using
undercover officers and informants to canvas the Islamic population of
America’s largest city, according to officials and confidential,
internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The
documents, many marked “secret,” highlight how the past decade’s hunt
for terrorists also put huge numbers of innocent people under scrutiny
as they went about their daily lives in mosques, businesses and social
groups.
An Associated Press investigation last month revealed that
a secret squad known as the Demographics Unit sent teams of undercover
officers to help key tabs on the area’s Muslim communities. The recent
documents are the first to quantify that effort.
Since the 2001
attacks, the police department has built one of the nation’s most
aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, one that operates far outside
the city limits and maintains a list of “ancestries of interest” that
it uses to focus its clandestine efforts. That effort has benefited from
federal money and an unusually close relationship with the CIA, one
that at times blurred the lines between domestic and foreign
intelligence-gathering.
After identifying more than 250 area
mosques, police officials determined the “ethnic orientation, leadership
and group affiliations,” according to the 2006 police documents. Police
also used informants and teams of plainclothes officers, known as
rakers, to identify mosques requiring further scrutiny, according to an
official involved in that effort, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to discuss the program.
Armed with
that information, police then identified 53 “mosques of concern” and
placed undercover officers and informants there, the documents show.
Many
of those mosques were flagged for allegations of criminal activity,
such as alien smuggling, financing Hamas or money laundering. Others
were identified for having ties to Salafism, a hardline movement
preaching a strict version of Islamic law. Still others were identified
for what the documents refer to as “rhetoric.”
Other reasons are less clear.
Two
mosques, for instance, were flagged for having ties to Al-Azhar, the
1,000-year-old Egyptian mosque that is the pre-eminent institute of
Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world. Al-Azhar was one of the
first religious institutions to condemn the 2001 terrorist attacks.
President George W. Bush’s close adviser, Karen Hughes, visited Al-Azhar
in 2005 and applauded its courage.
Al-Azhar was also a sponsor of President Barack Obama’s 2009 speech reaching out to the Muslim world.
The
list of mosques where undercover agents or informants operated includes
ones that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has visited and that area
officials have mentioned as part of the region’s strong ties to the
Muslim community. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has stood beside leaders of
some mosques on the list as allies in fighting terrorism.
The
documents are a series of internal presentations, including one prepared
for Kelly. Following the AP’s reporting, they were provided to the AP
and veteran New York police reporter Leonard Levitt, who runs the
website NYPDConfidential.com. Because the list of mosques is so long and
explanation for the surveillance is so limited, the AP is not
identifying the individual mosques that were under surveillance.
An
NYPD spokesman and spokeswoman did not immediately return messages
seeking comment Monday, a holiday. The police department has said it
follows leads and does not trawl entire neighborhoods.
New York
Police identified 263 “hot spots” throughout the city, the documents
show. Like the mosques, the examples of hot spots ranged from businesses
that sold untaxed cigarettes and where inflammatory rhetoric was
overheard to those with less obvious criminal connections.
At one
Bangladeshi restaurant, for instance, police identified a “devout crowd”
from a nearby mosque — which was not among the listed mosques of
concern. The restaurant’s list of “alleged activities” also included
being a “popular meeting location for political activities.”
It is
another example undercutting Bloomberg’s claim that the NYPD does not
take religion into account in its policing. Last week the AP revealed
that the NYPD maintained a list of “ancestries of interest” that
included “American Black Muslim,” which is a religion, not an ancestry.
Police
also kept tabs on seven of the area’s Muslim student associations,
defined in the documents as “a university-based student group, with an
Islamic focus, involved with religious and political activities.” Two
were flagged for having Salafi speakers. One was cited for having
students who are “politically active and are radicalizing.”
The
documents appear at times at odds with the White House’s newly released
policy on combatting violent extremism. That document discourages
authorities from casting suspicion on communities or conflating strong
religious views with violent extremism. The White House has declined to
comment on the NYPD’s clandestine programs but has applauded its
counterterrorism efforts.
Since the AP reports, several Muslim
civil rights groups and a New York congresswoman have urged the Justice
Department to investigate the NYPD for what critics see as racial
profiling. Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the Justice Department
has stepped up investigations of local police departments for possible
civil rights violations, but none involves national security cases.
Other coverage: VIDEO: Pamela Geller at SION International Freedom of Speech Congress, September 11th
VIDEO: Lars Vilks speaks at SION International Freedom of Speech Congress, September 11th
VIDEO: David Yerushalmi at SION International Freedom of Speech Congress, September 11th
Video of the Pamela Geller, VIDEO: Bev Perlson, Band of Mothers here.
American Rattlesnake: Reclaiming Liberty: SION Conference (Part I)
More SION pictures, reportage here.
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5 Comments
11 years ago
The coming week will be a ‘teachable moment’ for getting the truth about Islam over to the general public. Here are some resources: http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about-islam.html
11 years ago
The reason we see the outrageous Islamic jihad right at our doorstep today is because we have a naive country of apologists and fools who feel it necessary to empathize with the self-determined plight of Muslims who choose every day for millennia to live in misery, envy and hatred. If only — IF ONLY — we felt even half that obligation toward Israel, a true and trusted, civilized friend.
We are at the last crossroads for America.
11 years ago
“Two mosques, for instance, were flagged for having ties to Al-Azhar, the 1,000-year-old Egyptian mosque that is the pre-eminent institute of Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world. Al-Azhar was one of the first religious institutions to condemn the 2001 terrorist attacks. President George W. Bush’s close adviser, Karen Hughes, visited Al-Azhar in 2005 and applauded its courage”.
…………………………………………………………………..
Could the enemedia be more willfully blind? Do they really believe al-azhar is just a benign religious institution?
The enemedia will have blood on its hands from the next jihadist attack on America.
11 years ago
The enemedia are perpetually stuck on the wrong side of the Theresienstadt dialectic, looking at Islam from without, and buying all of its foul propaganda.
11 years ago
I thought CAIR got that shut down? They shut down CIA, and military training. They made Islam the enemy we cannot speak of.
