Thread: NYPD caught spying on random members of the public outside its jurisdiction

NYPD CIA Anti-Terror Operations Conducted In Secret For Years

I haven't read the entire article yet, however what I have read sounds disturbing.

A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that 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. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is told exactly what's going on.

The department has dispatched teams of undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. NYPD officials have scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims.

Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit.

I'd have to agree. This isn't the America I grew up in. We're heading in the direction of the former USSR while the former USSR seems to be, slowly, heading in the direction of the former USA.

I hope that at some point there will be a corrective backlash which doesn't involve the sort of extreme measures usually accompanied by societies rejecting such authoritarian tactics.

not the same thing, but I thought it was interesting ‘Top Secret America’: A look at the military’s Joint Special Operations Command - The Washington Post