NYC mayor: NYPD not unfair in surveillance

[rug]

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the New York Police Department's surveillance of the city's ethnic neighborhoods had not unfairly targeted any group in an effort to root out possible terror connections, and compared it to screening kids for measles.

An Associated Press investigation found that NYPD dispatched undercover officers into ethnic communities to monitor daily life and scrutinized more than 250 mosques and Muslim student groups in the years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Bloomberg refused to comment directly on the details of the AP's investigation. Later in an interview he said: "If there is a community where the crime rate is very high, to not put more cops in that community is ridiculous. If you want to look for cases of measles, you'll find a lot more of them among young people. That's not targeting young people to go see whether they have measles or not."

The mayor's comments Wednesday offered a revealing glimpse into how Bloomberg believes the city's law enforcement officials should walk what he says is a fine line — protecting the city against attack while upholding constitutional protections.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/07/national/a234200D65.DTL

Measles.

[dmallind]

1. Pragmatism is pragmatism

Most murderes are men. Any detective will tell you an investigation will look first and foremost at men. Even moreso at husbands/bfs of murdered women. Sexist? No, sensible. Only NOT sensible if they refuse to consider women at all.

Similarly the few serial killers that are not immediately killed/captured are almost always mature white men (as are the ones who are immediately killed/captured - just doesn't need investigating much then). The list of female and minority serial killers is a fleabite in comparison. So if a different strangled vagrant shows up seven nights in a row with the axe of spades stapled to their forehead, is it unfair that detectives spend more time looking at VFW members than at youth clubs in Hispanic neighborhoods? Not at all.

So when it comes currently to people funding extreme Islamist terrorist groups, why exactly does it make sense to look at 80 yr old Presbyterian white women from Westchester County as much as at insular fundamentalist madrassas and mosques?

Certainly fundamentalists and extremists of other kind should be watched, but outside the laughably ineffective Christian Identity types, the dangerous religious lunatics on the Christian side seem to prefer more ballots than bullets; Jewish extremism as well as Hindu and Sikh and Buddhist has shown little interest in the US so far.

[rug]

2. Read up on the Demographics Unit of the NYPD.

[dmallind]

3. What would I find?

[rug]

4. Lots.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=299767

It's a domestic spying program targeting minorities.

[darkstar3]

5. If it's about minorities, then why not post it in GD with a wider audience?

[rug]

6. They're in mosques, officer.

Honest.

[darkstar3]

7. Again, what you're talking about here is the alleged political persecution of minorities.

Something which the entire DU audience would have a comment about.

Now, if what you want to talk about is the NYPD monitoring religious houses of worship in order to ensure that messages of hate and terrorism do not propogate without their knowledge, that's a different discussion.

[rug]

8. A program I recall you favored.

[darkstar3]

9. I would, if it were expanded to include churches, synagogues, and other places

likely to generate such people as Scott Roeder, and the people who have firebombed Planned Parenthood locations around the US. As it is, I don't think the program goes far enough to be effective.

Who knows? If someone in the audience might be a cop on duty, that could hypothetically serve as a deterrent to boyfucking, too.

[rug]

10. Not surprising.

[darkstar3]

11. Are you uniterested in preventing domestic terrorism?

And when you give your flippant answer dismissing this question, ponder these things:

Where has the vast majority of domestic terrorism come from?
How can we prevent domestic terrorism if we are unable or unwilling to watch the source(s)?

[rug]

12. No, not in the least.

Are you interested in the erosion if civil liberties?

[darkstar3]

13. Which ones are being eroded?

Clearly you didn't ponder.

[rug]

14. Ah, you see none.

Also unsurprising.

[darkstar3]

15. Present them.

Freedoms are not curtailed by observation, especially freedoms which are exercised in public. So if you believe that freedoms are being curtailed or eroded here, then please explain which freedoms, and how.

[rug]

16. I repeat. You see no erosion of civil liberties.

You have not advanced since this came up the first time.

[darkstar3]

17. If you refuse to present these erosions, how will anyone outside your circle see them?

ETA: Your silence here will be taken as proof that you cannot even define these erosions you see, let alone demonstrate their existence.

[dmallind]

19. There is a civil liberty of not having to share the right to assemble with LEOs?

[dmallind]

18. Targetting those with a greater likelihood of wrongdoing you mean?

[rug]

20. Targetting religious and ethnic minorities on a suspicion of wrongdoing is what I mean.

I must say that this thread demonstrates atheism, per se, does not equal progressive values.

[dmallind]

21. Does not equal blissninny idiocy, perhaps

Where would YOU look for people likely to fund, for example, Islamic terrorism?

a) Old folks' home in a Jewish community in Riverdale?
b) VFW in a blue-collar Italian neighborhood in Bensonhurst?
c) Fundamentalist Sunni mosque in Jackson Heights?
d) WASPy tennis club in Westchester County?

If you don't want to look for such activity you are abdicating responsible anti-terrorism activity.

If you look ai a, b, or d first or foremost, you are a blithering idiot.

If I were looking for the next Christian terrorist I'd be looking in the small charismatic splinter sects in the South or prairie states. I wouldn't waste much time in a Sikh temple in New Jersey or a pagan coven in Portland.

Progressive values include law enforcement and preventive approaches to violent crime. They only become an obstacle if people suggest we close down c, or arrest every member of c, or blow c off the face of the earth. Keeping a watchful eye on c is not in conflict with any progressive value you can name.

[darkstar3]

22. Well said.