Appeals court reinstates lawsuit over police surveillance of Muslims

A lawsuit targeting the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslims can move forward, paving the way for a trial on the constitutionality of spying on New Jersey mosques, schools and businesses, including ones in Paterson and North Bergen.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the Muslim plaintiffs raised sufficient allegations of equal-protection violations and reversed a judge’s decision previous year to dismiss the case.

The anti-terror programme, which was carried out in the state of New Jersey, became widely known after a series of articles by the Associated Press, which reported that police officers were infiltrating Muslim organisations throughout the greater New York region in the wake of the attacks of September 11 2001.

A spokesperson for the City Law Department says it was reviewing the decision and declined to comment further.

Quoting Justice William O. Douglas in the 1944 Supreme Court decision that led to the closure of the internment camps for Japanese-Americans, the appellate court added: “We are left to wonder why we can not see with foresight what we see so clearly with hindsight – that ‘Loyalty is a matter of the heart and mind not race, creed, or color'”. And, if you do know, don’t shoot us.

“When these citizens pleaded with the courts to uphold their constitutional rights, we passively accepted the government’s representations that the use of such classifications was necessary to the national interest”, the appeals court said in reference to the Japanese internments.

The reports indicated that the NYPD secretly designated entire mosques as terrorist organisations, which allowed surveillance to continue even though a mosque or Islamic organisation had never been criminally charged with operating as a terrorism enterprise.

The New Jersey Muslims “have plausibly alleged that the City engaged in intentional discrimination”, Ambro wrote in overturning the ruling, creating “a presumption of unconstitutionality that remains the City’s obligation to rebut…”

After becoming mayor, Bill de Blasio ordered the end of the program in 2014. “Shoot the messenger”, the court said, referencing the lower court’s reasoning regarding the AP’s reporting. The ruling stated the program was not instituted to discriminate against Muslims, but to identify terrorists hiding among law-abiding Muslims.

The Muslim plaintiffs — including an Iraq War veteran, a grade school principal and members of the Muslim Student Association at Rutgers University — wanted the lawsuit revived in part so they could learn more about the program. No one should ever be spied on and treated like a suspect simply because of his or her faith, and today’s ruling paves the path to holding the NYPD accountable for ripping up the Constitution.

The CCR noted that while the NYPD has recently disbanded one of the main surveillance units, there is no evidence it has abandoned its practice of unlawfully profiling Muslims.

Hassan was initially filed by Muslim Advocates; the Center for Constitutional Rights and Gibbons, P.C. joined as co-counsel several months later.