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Federal Court: Muslims of NJ Can Pursue Lawsuit Against NYPD Spying

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Muslim rights advocates gather to protest the surveillance operations conducted by the NYPD on Muslims throughout the greater New York region.

A conglomerate of Muslim organizations are now in a position of pursuing a lawsuit that accuses the New York City Police Department of allegedly conducting covert surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey at their mosques, schools and businesses.

On Tuesday, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia brought down this ruling in a formidable decision that drew parallels between the plaintiffs’ assertions of being blatantly discriminated against because of race and nationality to those of other minority groups that came before them such as African-Americans, Jews and Japanese.

“We have learned from experience that it is often where the asserted interest appears most compelling that we must be most vigilant in protecting constitutional rights,” Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro wrote for a three-judge panel.

The NYPD surveillance program was initiated in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but only came to public view after the Associated Press released a series of articles about police officers who were allegedly infiltrating Muslim organizations throughout New York City and parts of New Jersey. The articles later garnered AP writers a Pulitzer Prize.

Challenging the lower court’s ruling were advocates for Muslim rights and the Center for Constitutional Rights. They represented both individuals and organizations in New Jersey, including school administrators, a decorated Iraqi war veteran as well as business owners who claimed that their constitutional protections has been abrogated when they were subjected to the monitoring of the NYPD. They also charged that the surveillance focused on them was deleterious to their careers, and also resulted in them no longer attending religious services, among other negatively impactful effects.

Criticizing the surveillance program done by New York City police on the campaign trail, Mayor Bill de Blasio, put an end to the controversial program subsequent to taking office in 2014, as was reported by the media.

Baher Azmy, the legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement released to the media that “the court reaffirmed the elementary principle that law enforcement cannot spy on and harass individuals for no other reason than their religion and the equally important principle that courts cannot simply accept untested claims about national security to justify a gross stereotype about Muslims. There is no Muslim exception to the Constitution.”

In February of 2014, U.S. District Judge William Martini in Newark, New Jersey, dismissed the case, having found that the city had presented cogent arguments that the surveillance conducted by the NYPD was an effort in countering terrorism rather than a program designed to target Muslims.

But the court on Tuesday ruled that “there is standing to complain” and “constitutional concerns that must be addressed and, if true, redressed.”

“What occurs here in one guise is not new.  We have been down similar roads before. Jewish-Americans during the Red Scare, African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, and Japanese-Americans during World War II are examples that readily spring to mind.”

The appeals court decision does not resolve the merits of the case but returns the lawsuit to Martini for further proceedings.

This case is not the only one of its kind. In 2013, a similar claim was brought before a Brooklyn federal court by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Other groups of civil liberties attorneys have said that covert operations that targeted specific ethic, religious or racial groups runs afoul of a longstanding court order limiting how the police can monitor political activity.

The case in question is Hassan et al. v. The City of New York, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 14-1688.

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