NYC defends use of Muslim police informants
The New York Police Department disbanded a unit that once tracked the everyday lives of Muslims, but it has taken a tough stance in a heated legal battle over its continuing use of Muslim informants in terror threat investigations.
Muslim groups filed a civil rights lawsuit last year that asked a federal judge to declare the surveillance unconstitutional and halt it.
City lawyers struck back by suggesting the plaintiffs brought the attention on themselves with “rhetoric or their known, suspected or rumored associations with people or organizations of ill repute.” The city then demanded any communications by the plaintiffs — which include two Brooklyn mosques, an imam, a Muslim charity — that mention terrorism, jihad or the war in Afghanistan as well as financial records from the mosques and charity, including names of donors.