After a decade of the police spying on the innocuous details of the daily lives of Muslims, activists in New York are discouraging people from going directly to the police with their concerns about terrorism, a campaign that is certain to further strain relations between the two groups. Muslim community leaders are openly teaching people how to identify police informants, encouraging them to always talk to a lawyer before speaking with the authorities and reminding people already working with law enforcement that they have the right to change their minds. The outreach campaign follows an Associated Press investigation that revealed the NYPD had dispatched plainclothes officers to eavesdrop in Muslim communities in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, often without any evidence of wrongdoing. Restaurants serving Muslims were identified and photographed. Hundreds of mosques were investigated, and dozens were infiltrated. Police used the information to build ethnic databases on daily life inside Muslim neighborhoods. Many of these programs were developed with the help of the CIA. As a result, one of America's largest Muslim communities — in a city that's been attacked twice and targeted more than a dozen times — is caught in a downward spiral of distrust with the nation's largest police department: The New York City Police Department spies on Muslims, which makes them less likely to trust police. That reinforces the belief that the community is secretive and insular, a belief that current and former NYPD officials have said was one of the key reasons for spying in the first place. Some government officials point to the type of outreach as proof that Muslims aren't cooperating in the fight against terrorism, justifying the aggressive spy tactics, while many in the Muslim community view it as a way to protect themselves from getting snared in a secret police effort to catch terrorists. At a recent “Know Your Rights” session for Brooklyn College students, someone asked why Muslims who don't have anything to hide should avoid talking to police. “Most of the time it's a fishing expedition,” answered Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York. “So the safest thing you can do for yourself, your family and for your community, is not to answer.” New York Republican Rep. Peter King said this kind of reaction from the Muslim community is “disgraceful.” Muslim groups have previously organized educational programs around the country describing a person's legal rights, such as when they must present identification to a police officer and when they can refuse to answer police questions. A California chapter of a national Muslim organization produced a poster that warned Muslims not to talk to the FBI. The national organization ultimately asked the California branch to take down the poster. In New York, the AP stories about the NYPD and internal police documents have outraged some Muslims and provided evidence of tactics that they suspected were being used to watch them all along. These disclosures have intensified the outreach campaigns in New York. A recently distributed brochure from the City University of New York Law School warns people to be wary when confronted by someone who advocates violence against the US, discusses terror organizations, is overly generous or is aggressive in their interactions. The brochure said that person could be a police informant. “Be very careful about involving the police,” the brochure said. “If the individual is an informant, the police may not do anything ... If the individual is not an informant and you report them, the unintended consequences could be devastating.”
