[Ppnews] Inside the spy unit that NYPD says doesn't exist

Wed Aug 31 10:05:08 EDT 2011

Inside the spy unit that NYPD says doesn't exist

By ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press – 4 hours ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHc_1HtSxco67F1IoTZM0Wra4rWw?docId=97320a5daf684319b2221e0f97da3841
8/31/2011

NEW YORK (AP)  Working with the CIA, the New 
York Police Department maintained a list of 
"ancestries of interest" and dispatched 
undercover officers to monitor Muslim businesses 
and social groups, according to new documents 
that offer a rare glimpse inside an intelligence 
program the NYPD insists doesn't exist.

The documents add new details to an Associated 
Press investigation that explained how undercover 
NYPD officers singled out Muslim communities for surveillance and infiltration.

The Demographics Unit, a squad of 16 officers 
fluent in a total of at least five languages, was 
told to map ethnic communities in New York, New 
Jersey and Connecticut and identify where people socialize, shop and pray.

Once that analysis was complete, according to 
documents obtained by the AP, the NYPD would 
"deploy officers in civilian clothes throughout the ethnic communities."

The architect of this and other programs was a 
veteran CIA officer who oversaw the program while 
working with the NYPD on the CIA payroll. It was 
an unusual arrangement for the CIA, which is 
prohibited from spying inside the U.S.

After the AP report, New York Mayor Michael 
Bloomberg said the NYPD has kept the city safe 
and does not take religion into account in its 
policing. The NYPD denied the Demographics Unit exists.

"There is no such unit," police spokesman Paul 
Browne said before the first AP story ran. "There 
is nothing called the Demographics Unit."

Internal police documents show otherwise. An NYPD 
presentation, delivered inside the department, 
described the mission and makeup of the 
Demographics Unit. Undercover officers were told 
to look not only for evidence of terrorism and 
crimes but also to determine the ethnicity of 
business owners and eavesdrop on conversations inside cafes.

A police memorandum from 2006 described an NYPD 
supervisor rebuking an undercover detective for 
not doing a good enough job reporting on 
community events and "rhetoric heard in cafes and hotspot locations."

How law enforcement agencies, both local and 
federal, can stay ahead of Islamic terrorists 
without using racial profiling techniques has 
been hotly debated since 9/11. Singling out 
minorities for extra scrutiny without evidence of 
wrongdoing has been criticized as discriminatory. 
Not focusing on Muslim neighborhoods has been 
equally criticized as political correctness run 
amok. The documents describe how the nation's 
largest police force has come down on that issue.

Working out of the police department's offices at 
the Brooklyn Army Terminal, the Demographics Unit 
maintained a list of 28 countries that, along 
with "American Black Muslim," it considered 
"ancestries of interest." Nearly all are Muslim countries.

Police used census data and government databases 
to map areas it considered "hot spots" as well as 
the ethnic neighborhoods of New York's tri-state area, the documents show.

Undercover officers known as "rakers"  a term 
the NYPD also denied existed  were then told to 
participate in social activities such as cricket 
matches and visit cafes and clubs, the documents show.

Police had a list of "key indicators" of 
problems. It included obvious signs of trouble 
such as criminal activity and extremist rhetoric 
by imams. But it also included things commonly 
seen in neighborhoods, such as community centers, 
religious schools and "community bulletin boards 
(located in houses of worship)."

At least one lawyer inside the police department 
has raised concerns about the Demographics Unit, 
current and former officials told the AP. Because 
of those concerns, the officials said, the 
information gathered from the unit is kept on a 
computer at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, not in 
the department's normal intelligence database. 
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity 
because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence programs.

The AP independently authenticated the NYPD 
presentation through an interview with one 
official who saw it and by reviewing electronic 
data embedded in the file. A former official who 
had not seen the presentation said the content of 
the presentation was correct. For the internal 
memo, the AP verified the names and locations 
mentioned in the document, and the content is 
consistent with a program described by numerous current and former officials.

In an email Tuesday night, Browne disputed the 
AP's original story, saying the NYPD only follows 
leads and does not simply trawl communities.

"We do not employ undercovers or confidential 
informants unless there is information indicating 
the possibility of unlawful activity," Browne wrote.

That issue has legal significance. The NYPD says 
it follows the same guidelines as the FBI, which 
cannot use undercover agents to monitor 
communities without first receiving an allegation 
or indication of criminal activity.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the 
CIA sent a respected veteran officer, Lawrence 
Sanchez, to New York, where he worked closely 
with the NYPD. Officials said he was instrumental 
in creating programs such as the Demographics 
Unit and met regularly with unit supervisors to 
guide the effort. After a two-year rotation in 
New York, Sanchez took a leave of absence, came 
off the agency's payroll and became the NYPD's 
second-ranking intelligence official. He formally 
left the agency in 2007 and stayed with the NYPD until last year.

The CIA recently dispatched another officer to 
work in the Intelligence Division for what 
officials described as a management sabbatical. A 
U.S. official familiar with the NYPD-CIA 
partnership said Sanchez's time in New York was a 
unique assignment created in the wake of the 9/11 
attacks. But the official said the current 
officer's job was much different and was an 
opportunity for him to learn from an organization outside the CIA.

Both the CIA said and the NYPD have said the 
agency is not involved in domestic spying and 
said the partnership is the kind of 
counterterrorism collaboration Americans expect.

The NYPD Intelligence Division has unquestionably 
been essential to the city's best 
counterterrorism successes, including the 
thwarted plot to bomb the subway system in 2004. 
Undercover officers also helped lead to the 
guilty plea of two men arrested on their way to 
receive terrorism training in Somalia.

"We throw 1,200 police officers into the fight 
every day to make sure the same people or 
similarly inspired people who killed 3,000 New 
Yorkers a decade ago don't come back and do it 
again," Browne said earlier this month when asked 
about the NYPD's intelligence tactics.

The Demographics Unit had officers who spoke 
Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu, 
according to the police presentation. The 
undercover officers were divided into teams based 
on ethnicity. Arab officers could blend into Arab 
neighborhoods and Southwest Asian officers, those 
from Pakistan and Afghanistan, could more easily 
blend into those neighborhoods.

Rep. Yvette Clarke, a Democrat who represents 
much of Brooklyn and sits on the House Homeland 
Security Committee, said the NYPD can protect the 
city without singling out specific ethnic and 
religious groups. She joined Muslim organizations 
in calling for a Justice Department investigation 
into the NYPD Intelligence Division. The 
department said it would review the request for an investigation.

Clarke acknowledged that the 2001 terrorist 
attacks made Americans more willing to accept 
aggressive tactics, particularly involving 
Muslims. But she said Americans would be outraged 
if police infiltrated Baptist churches looking 
for evangelical Christian extremists.

"There were those who, during World War II, said, 
'Good, I'm glad they're interning all the 
Japanese-Americans who are living here,'" Clarke 
said. "But we look back on that period with disdain."

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