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Group Files Paperwork to Find Out Who Gave NYPD Money To Spy
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Following months of reports revealing widespread NYPD surveillance of Muslim Americans, and the use of anti-Muslim propaganda in NYPD training, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) has submitted Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to obtain public information regarding the sources of funding for these NYPD initiatives.
AALDEF’s statement published in it’s entirety below:
Since August, 2011, the Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD built secret programs with help from the CIA to monitor Muslims throughout the Northeast, visited websites and forums of Muslim student associations at out-of-state colleges, and attended a white-water rafting trip with 18 Muslim students from the City College of New York. “Despite reports of extensive NYPD infringement on the civil rights of Muslim Americans, very little information is publicly available regarding how the NYPD funds these programs,” said Nermeen Arastu, staff attorney with AALDEF. “If the NYPD is violating its operating rules and the FBI guidelines it supposedly follows through racial and religious profiling, we deserve to know how much of our taxpayer money is being used to do so.”
AALDEF has submit FOIL requests to the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services as well as to the Office of the State Comptroller. Additionally, AALDEF has submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the federal Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regarding funds dispersed to New York City, because approximately 80 percent of the NYPD’s intelligence funding comes from the federal government. For example, New York City planned to use $24.3 million in federal homeland security grants to pay overtime to its police departments in 2011.
“In the past, federal agencies like FEMA neglected to ask the NYPD to demonstrate what, if any, benefits resulted from its use of federal grants,” said Arastu. “Now, considering the NYPD’s duplicity about its operations and the resultant distrust these actions have fostered in the Muslim American community, the time of zero accountability and transparency must end. We deserve to know how our taxpayer dollars are being spent.”
By Jorge Rivas