NYPD's Justification for Spying on Muslims: Muslims Complaining About Bias

Conversations police used as evidence of need for surveillance show no signs of any sort of terrorist activity whatsoever.

Muslims talking about anti-Muslim discrimination is proof the New York Police Department should spy on Muslims—at least according to the NYPD.

The NYPD official in charge of the department's massive surveillance of local Muslims told a court in June that two conversations in Urdu overheard by his unit prove the worth of the spying program—a program that, as the Associated Press first reported on Tuesday, never led to a single lead, arrest, or investigation. Now Mother Jones has discovered that the two conversations the NYPD official cited as evidence of the value of the surveillance program include complaints about discrimination against Muslims. The NYPD asked the court reviewing its spying activities to redact the conversations from the official transcript, but an error in the redaction process allowed Mother Jones to identify parts of the text.