A Lawsuit Only Jihadists Could Love

by Robert Spencer

Recently the mainstream media made much of revelations that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had been conducting surveillance of Muslims in New York and New Jersey, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Muslim Students Association. After an investigation cleared the NYPD of any wrongdoing and established the complete legality of the program, an Islamic supremacist group in New Jersey is trying a different tactic to shut this surveillance down: they’ve brought suit trying to ban surveillance based on religion – a lawsuit that only Islamic jihadists could love.

“They don’t have the right to spy and do surveillance on innocent people, on good citizens,” huffed an imam in Newark, Abdul Kareem Muhammad. He added: “This surveillance, this spying, without question, was unjustified. And it was definitely, without doubt, an invasion of our civil, human and our constitutional rights.”

Contrary to Muhammad’s assertions, an investigation actually uncovered no NYPD wrongdoing: New Jersey State Attorney Jeffrey Chiesa undertook a three-month-long investigation of the NYPD for its surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey and cleared the Department of any wrongdoing. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an energetic proponent of the Ground Zero Mosque, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly maintain that the program is necessary and falls within legal bounds.

Likewise, when asked about the legality of the program, the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, Paul Browne responded: “I refer you to the New Jersey AG’s report and to the fact that NYPD activities in New Jersey were lawful, appropriate and in keeping with efforts there, in New York, and around the world to prevent terrorists from returning here to kill more New Yorkers.”

But preventing terrorists from killing more New Yorkers, as well as New Jerseyites, is apparently not a high priority for Muslim Advocates, which describes itself as “a legal resource to promote the full and meaningful participation of Muslims in American public life.” Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates, appears aware of how the group’s suit looks as if Muslims are trying to impede legitimate counterterror efforts, and insists that “all Americans, including American Muslims, care deeply about our safety and security.”

However, she doesn’t care enough about our safety and security to refrain from bringing this suit. Khera complains that Muslims are being singled out for law enforcement scrutiny: “Just to give you an example, there was reference in the documents to targeting, for example, the Iranian community, the Egyptian community, the Syrian community. But then there was explicit reference to the fact that they weren’t targeting Syrian Jews or Iranian Jews or Egyptian Christians, but really, the focus was on Muslims.”

Gee, why might that be? Could it be because Syrian Jews, Iranian Jews and Egyptian Christians aren’t committing acts of violence worldwide in the name of their religion? Could it because there are no armed groups of Syrian Jews, Iranian Jews and Egyptian Christians terrorizing non-Jews or non-Christians and quoting their Scriptures to justify their actions?

Naaah. It must be because of rampant, unchecked NYPD “Islamophobia”!

One of the plaintiffs is Moiz Mohammed, a student at Rutgers University and a member of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at Rutgers. Mohammed calls the MSA “an organization where students can come learn about Islam, participate, whether it be Muslim students or non-Muslim students. We cater to the whole university community.”

The MSA is also a Muslim Brotherhood organization, so named in the notorious captured internal document in which the Brotherhood stated its goal of “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”

Mohammed claims he has “never” heard any MSA members talk jihad. “And I don’t think anyone would actually say that in public, because all the other Muslims would not tolerate that behavior and that talk.”

Certainly Muslims have on occasion turned in jihadist plotters. But much more often, we hear about Muslim leaders explaining to Muslims how they don’t have to cooperate with authorities or tell them anything. Now, why is that?

If the Muslim Advocates’ lawsuit is successful, the inevitable result will be that the NYPD will do less to stop jihad terror. And the net result of that will be more jihad terror. Since this is an entirely legal program, it is hard not to think that that is what the Muslims who are suing want.

According to CBS News, the plaintiffs “hope to get two things: They want a set of rules saying the NYPD can’t do the surveillance anymore, and they want a federal judge to put a stamp on that. And they want all the files expunged from the records.”

Of course!

Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of ten books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran (Regnery), and he is coauthor (with Pamela Geller) of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America (Simon and Schuster).

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/08/a-lawsuit-only-jihadists-could-love/

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