Image credit: VoicesofNY.org
The proverbial cat exploded out of the bag this week when the Associated Press published the formerly-confidential papers detailing NYPD’s further surveillance on suspected or potential terrorist plots.
A wave of criticism and disappointment towards the NYPS’s actions quickly ensued.
We are confronted with the time-old conundrum: Is it right to sacrifice the individual liberties of one for the sake of a greater collective?
But this issue bears another debate in itself. How far should a department like the NYPD be able to operate? In other words, can they work outside of their jurisdiction for the sake of their operation?
After further examination, it had beendiscoveredthat:
“…the NYPD had been operating well outside its jurisdiction, cataloging Muslim communities on Long Island and New Jersey, and monitoring Muslim college students across the region.”
Quick to come to the NYPD’s defense, New York City Mayor Bloomberg announced:
“Everything the New York City Police Department has done is legal. It is appropriate. It is constitutional…They are permitted to travel beyond the borders of New York City to investigate cases … We don’t target individuals based on race or religion.”
As this dilemma continued to unravel, many began to wonder if the NYPD was working with Newark police to carry out the operation in Muslim communities in Newark. As the finger-pointing and the he-said, she-said nonsense continued, Newark Mayor Cory Booker had the following to say about this ordeal:
“If anyone in my police department had known this was a blanket investigation of individuals based on nothing but their religion, that strikes at the core of our beliefs and my beliefs very personally, and it would have merited a far sterner response.”
However, as the police force to the city that bore witness to the worst terrorist attack on American soil, it should be stated that:
“…[terrorists] have used Internet cafes, worked out at gyms, visited travel agencies, attended student groups and prayed at mosques. So the NYPD monitored those areas. In doing so, they monitored many innocent people as they went about their daily lives.”
While we may never know the truth about how and why the NYPD’s investigation wriggled past its jurisdiction. But it happened. Now how do we handle this, if at all?
