How the Outcome of the Muslim Spying Case Impacts Everyone

April 2014
Colorlines

In late February, U.S. District Judge William J. Martini found that the New York Police Department hadn’t violated the rights of the New Jersey-based plaintiffs in Hassan v. City of New York, a class action suit filed in response to the NYPD’s [massive spying](http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/02/first_came_the_shock_then.html) on Muslim mosques, businessness and student associations in the name of finding terrorists.

“The policy could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself,” Judge Martini wrote in a his decision dismissing the case. “The motive for the program was not to soley discriminate against Muslims, but rather to find Muslim terrorists hiding among ordinary, law-abiding Muslims.”
 
Attorneys in the suit, which was originaly filed on June 6, 2012 by Muslim Advocates and now has the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) as co-counsel, are appealing. Colorlines caught up with Omar Farah, a staff attorney at the CCR who is actively involved the case, to discuss the status of the appeal and the precedent it will set for Americans of all backgrounds. Below is an edited and condensed version of the converstation.
 

Last modified 

April 15, 2014