NYPD Surveillance

NYPD organized 'large scale' Black Lives Matter surveillance and kept activist photos years later

The NYPD organized a citywide surveillance effort of Black Lives Matter protesters, according to nearly 700 emails obtained by an attorney.
A scene from a Nov. 2017 rally in Union Square, New York City. GETTY IMAGES
01/17/2019
Metro New York

Nearly 700 NYPD emails show a large-scale effort to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters by undercover cops trained to take down organized crime, according to documents obtained by attorney M.J. Williams.

The emails also reveal that the department has held on their findings, including photographs of individual activists, nearly four years later, raising First Amendment concerns. 

For immediate release:
March 24, 2017

Reform Campaign Condemns de Blasio’s Unilateral Appointment of Civilian Monitor for Disregarding New Yorkers Targeted by NYPD’s Unwarranted Political and Religious Surveillance

In response to Mayor de Blasio unilaterally appointing a civilian representative to the Handschu Committee to prevent any further improper and unwarranted surveillance of political activities and Muslim communities by the NYPD, Communities United for Police Reform released the following statement from spokesperson Mark Winston Griffith, the executive director of the Brooklyn Movement Center.

“Mayor de Blasio has once again disregarded communities impacted by the NYPD’s abusive and discriminatory policing, prioritizing announcements above substance. When New Yorkers are the subject of unwarranted surveillance based on their political activities or religion, it doesn’t build trust to secretly appoint and announce an independent civilian monitor without input from the communities who forced the appointment of such an official by the courts in the first place.

The Long Roots of the NYPD Spying Program

06/13/2012
The Nation

The stories are as remarkable for their banality as for their detail.
 
On February 8, 2006, the imam at a Bronx mosque advised congregants to boycott Danish products in response to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper. In November 2006, a member of the Muslim Students Association at the state university in Buffalo forwarded an e-mail to a Yahoo chat group advertising a conference featuring various Muslim scholars. And in April 2008, college students on a rafting trip discussed religion and prayed “at least four times a day.”