FaithWorld

(Muslim men at prayer time in a New York mosque, August 26, 2010/Lucas Jackson)

A U.S. Muslim civil liberties organization has called for a federal investigation and Senate hearings into a report the CIA was helping New York City police gather intelligence from mosques and minority neighborhoods. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) suspects the joint CIA-police intelligence-gathering described in an Associated Press report violates the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Privacy Act of 1974 and a presidential order banning the CIA from spying on Americans, CAIR attorney Gadeir Abbas said.

“This is hearing-worthy,” Abbas said on Wednesday, requesting a Senate Intelligence Committee review as part of its oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The AP report said undercover New York Police Department officers known as “rakers” were sent into minority neighborhoods to monitor bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs, and police used informants known as “mosque crawlers” to monitor sermons.

“The NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government,” wrote the AP, which described the collaboration between the CIA and a U.S. police department as unprecedented. A police spokesman said “we don’t apologize” for aggressive techniques developed since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He said those techniques have helped thwart 13 plots on the city.

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