
The NYPD Division of Un-American Activities - kitcar
http://nymag.com/news/features/nypd-demographics-unit-2013-9/#print
======
bilalq
As a Muslim, I've had to make peace with knowing that I have no privacy and
little guarantee of my rights. I recently graduated from Rutgers University in
New Jersey, and the NYPD was even spying and monitoring us there. [0]

History's pages are filled with instances of minorities being targeted and
persecuted. One can go back and look at what happened to the Blacks, the Jews,
the Japanese, and many others. That the targeted group is different isn't the
key here. What's different now is that technology has progressed to the point
where the invasiveness and secrecy of what goes on is unmatched.

[0] [http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2012/NYPD-
monitored...](http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2012/NYPD-monitored-
Muslim-students-all-over-Northeast)

~~~
Amadou
Don't make too much peace with it. A lot of my muslim friends have been
reluctant to stir the pot about their treatment by the authorities and society
in general, saying things like "it is in god's hands." The problem with that
attitude is that in the US the system is designed such that the squeaky wheel
is the only one that gets the oil.

The civil rights movement happened because blacks organized, the japanese were
really passive about the whole interment camp thing. I knew families that had
lost everything -- houses, farmland -- because it was basically stolen from
them while they were interred. When they were released they preferred to avoid
talking about it, as if it were a great shame on them rather than a shame on
the rest of the country for doing it to them. So practically no legal action
occurred their property was never recovered, depriving their children of
opportunities that were rightly theirs.

You have to do whatever it takes to live without completely losing your
marbles over the situation, so I'm not judging - just saying that it is
important to talk about it as much as you can stomach with as many people as
will listen so they can start to understand what your experiences are.

~~~
maratd
To be fair, nobody is placing Muslims in internment camps nor are they being
forced to ride in the back of the bus.

If anything, we are learning that we are _all_ under constant surveillance.

~~~
Amadou
The japanese internment did not happen out of the blue, there was a lot of
agitation against them leading up to it. The goal is to stop things from
getting out of hand rather than trying to fix them after the fact.

------
gojomo
I wonder if this is the group that (allegedly? warrantlessly?) searched Aditya
Mukerjee's apartment and took a religious photo during his recent boarding
troubles and temporary detention.

(See the last 5 paragraphs of:
<[http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-
fly-...](http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during-
ramadan>.))

------
InclinedPlane
We've accepted so many hedges and exceptions against the rule of law and the
constitution that it's hard to argue against the idea that our country isn't
on a slippery slope into some horrible devastating loss of freedoms.

We've created so many "constitution free zone" bubbles that they are rapidly
merging into one solid wall-to-wall exception for nearly every part of our
lives: the ways we travel, communicate, are entertained, do business, etc.
Soon enough the parts of our lives where the constitution is actually fully in
force will be so small that it might as well not exist.

------
greenyoda
From the end of the article:

 _" Whatever the shortcomings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
oversight system, at least there is, theoretically, a check on the agency’s
activities. But in New York City, for Muslim citizens and activists of many
stripes, there is no such outside system meant to safeguard their privacy. The
NYPD conducts its oversight in-house. City Hall doesn’t review intelligence
programs the way Congress does. Courts can step in to settle questions about
constitutionality, but only if somebody finds out about programs that are
designed to remain secret forever.

In 2010, the Demographics Unit was renamed the Zone Assessment Unit over fears
about how the title would be perceived if it leaked out. But rakers still
troll Muslim neighborhoods, filing an average of four new reports every day,
searching for hot spots. The Muslim community is marbled with fear, afraid to
speak openly because an informant could be lurking near.

Kelly is unapologetic. Like the department’s use of the tactic known as stop-
and-frisk, raking is a tactic Kelly maintains is legal. He said the program is
operating just as it always has. “Nothing” has changed, Kelly boasted to The
Wall Street Journal earlier this year.

In many ways, Ray Kelly has been a remarkably successful commissioner—but when
it mattered most, the Demographics Unit was a failure as a matter of police
work. And now, the lawyers in the Handschu case_ [which resulted in the
original prohibition of the NYPD spying on people not suspected of crimes]
_have returned to court, arguing that Kelly and Cohen, in their effort to keep
the city safe, have crossed constitutional lines. Regardless of the outcome,
the NYPD’s programs are likely to join waterboarding, secret prisons, and NSA
wiretapping as emblems of post-9 /11 America, when security justified many
practices that would not have been tolerated before."_

~~~
rhizome
_the Demographics Unit was renamed the Zone Assessment Unit over fears about
how the title would be perceived if it leaked out._

The same way the NSA, CIA and FBI repeatedly rename their continuing
activities.

~~~
wjnc
The correct term is newspeak [1]

In newspeak the contracted name for the unit would have been DemoUn,
pronounced /ˈdiː.mən/.

UnDem would have been a good second choice.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak)

~~~
rhizome
The problem there is that "Newspeak" is itself a placeholder term for a
certain set of behaviors, not to mention that 1984 quotes carry about as much
weight as Simpson's ones.

The term _you 're_ probably looking for is "euphemism treadmill:"

[http://englishcowpath.blogspot.com/2011/06/euphemism-
treadmi...](http://englishcowpath.blogspot.com/2011/06/euphemism-treadmill-
replacing-r-word.html)

------
devx
That's a good headline. We should start calling what NSA is doing "un-
American" too - because it is.

~~~
Bakkot
It's a reference to [1], not a description.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-
American_Activities_Co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-
American_Activities_Committee)

------
ajb
Although I've been alarmed by many of the abused of power reported recently,
I'm not sure about this one. It may well be illegal, but the article doesn't
make the case that any actual harm has occurred. After all, what we are
talking about here is a bunch of cops _" sitting round eating kebabs and
buying pastries"_.

 _" That’s when Berdecia realized that, in the hunt for terrorists, his
detectives gravitated toward the best food."_

 _" the Demographics Unit never built a single case"_

It sounds more like a waste of money than an abuse of power.

On the other hand, what it does do is show how easily law enforcement officers
can use nebulous suspicions to justify what they want to do. In this case,
they label people as suspicious in order to justify getting a nice meal.
Others do so in order to go on a power trip.

~~~
betterunix
"It may well be illegal, but the article doesn't make the case that any actual
harm has occurred"

Funny how that logic does not apply to the rest of us when the police make an
arrest...

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pcunite
Always watch out for the use of the word _Intelligence_ ... it has special
meaning to _them_.

