Earlier this month, word emerged that the New York Police Department was keeping tabs on Muslim students.
Among the monitored was Adeela Kahn, who’d attended college in Buffalo. After finding a flyer for an upcoming Islamic convention in her inbox, Mrs. Kahn took it upon herself to forward the message to some friends she thought might be interested.
At the time, she probably didn’t think her gesture would catch the eye of a cross-state intelligence analyst. She probably didn’t think that a simple invitation would land her name, with emphasis on the Kahn, in the commissioner’s office. She probably didn’t think that it would all lead to her being listed in an official report, in a file labeled “SECRET” in an office over 300 miles away, but now she knows better.
Eye-opening as it was, her case isn’t exactly special. NYPD has been trailing students in over 13 universities in the Northeast, from Yale to the University of Pennsylvania to Rutgers. While they’ve claimed the groups aren’t chosen because of their religion, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, Mormons, Unitarians, and Rastafarians don’t seem to have made the cut. Apparently these spying practices are not only completely legal, but necessary in order to “protect the public.”
Commissioner Raymond Kelly has pointed to the student groups as being potential breeding grounds for terrorists, several of which they claimed to have caught as a result of the surveillance. Besides, indiscretion isn’t ground-breaking; watchdogs have been around since the colonies.
It’s one big mess, but it serves as another “opening shot” on a matter we tend to dance around — the reason for all of this snooping. Even though the big question, the morality of it all, is the one that everyone wants to answer, it’s the little ones that really strike a nerve.
By asking which groups should be policed, you’re asking why they’re being policed in the first place. If you address this fear, you’ll have to acknowledge that their difference is what sets them apart. And if we draw this assumption, then you can’t help but wonder if — as a country that’s made it our business to inflict equality upon the world — we’ve reached the threshold that we deem necessary for everyone else. The answer to that one is “no.”
If it sounds like an issue, that’s good, because it is. Each party’s left with one of three options: bending to the pressure, retaliating in spades or cooperating.
The first would be typical, but it’s the last thing we need. The second would only confirm what NYPD has claimed is “obvious.” The third just would be difficult. It’d take time; it’d require concessions from both sides, giving what they can, establishing parameters and putting their feet down once those boundaries have been crossed.
But if we’re willing to make the effort, the payoff would be astronomical with less files in hidden drawers and more discussions towards a viable solution.
Bryan Washington is a sociology freshman and may be reached at [email protected].
I'm not surprised this sort of thing is happening. If there really was equality, then Christians would be monitored for the handful of radicals that bomb abortion clinics. I guess freedom of religion only applies if you're not a Muslim. Joseph McCarthy would be proud.
I'm sure radical Christians are being monitored as well. Home grown terrorism has no religion. That being said, I feel that the media tend to focus more on what the government is doing about radical islam than other religions because it is a hot topic.
I have no problem with the profiling of Muslims. Europe is having a hard time with these people and if we think that the US is immune to what is happening over there, we're in for a scary ride.
"You people" you need not to generalize a whole billion and a half because the act of some minority. Other wise it's you people who are terrorizing muslims, the mosque vandalisms, attacking sikhs thinking they are Muslims, the slashing of Muslim cab driver, the hate mongering machine the fuels more people like you tho become radicals like the Norway massacre, and now the latest attack and the cold blood killing of "You People"of an Iraqi woman whom is a mother our 5. Where was the police? Or the FBI? Oh wait, if muslims get killed then it's no biggy. Frail back to you hole and keep watching beck, fox and others.
Pg. 1.
he Muslim Game:
Bringing other religions down to the level of Islam is one of the most popular strategies of Muslim apologists when confronted with the spectacle of Islamic violence. Remember Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber? How about Anders Breivik, the Norwegian killer? Why pick on Islam if other religions have the same problems?
The Truth:
Because they don’t.
Regardless of what his birth certificate may or may not have said, Timothy McVeigh was not a religious man (in fact, he stated explicitly that he was agnostic and that "science" was his religion). At no time did he credit his deeds to religion, quote Bible verses, or claim that he killed for Jesus. His motives are very well documented through interviews and research. God is never mentioned.
The so-called “members of other faiths” alluded to by Muslims are nearly always
Pr. 2.
The so-called “members of other faiths” alluded to by Muslims are nearly always just nominal members who have no active involvement. They are neither inspired by, nor do they credit religion as Muslim terrorists do – and this is what makes it a very different matter.
Islam is associated with Islamic terrorism because that is the association that the terrorists themselves choose to make.
Muslims who compare crime committed by people who happen to be nominal members of other religions to religious terror committed explicitly in the name of Islam are comparing apples to oranges.
Yes, some of the abortion clinic bombers were religious (as Muslims enjoy pointing out), but consider the scope of the problem. There have been six deadly attacks over a 36 year period in the U.S. Eight people died. This is an average of one death every 4.5 years.
Pg. 3.
By contrast, Islamic terrorists staged nearly ten thousand deadly attacks in just the six years following September 11th, 2001. If one goes back to 1971, when Muslim armies in Bangladesh began the mass slaughter of Hindus, through the years of Jihad in the Sudan, Kashmir and Algeria, and the present-day Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq, the number of innocents killed in the name of Islam probably exceeds five million over this same period.
Anders Breviek, who murdered 76 innocents in a lone rampage on July 25th, 2011, was originally misidentified as a "Christian fundamentalist" by the police. In fact, the killings were later determined to be politically motivated. He also left behind a detailed 1500 page manifesto in which he stated that he is not religious, does not know if God exists, and he prefers a secular state to a theocracy. Needless to say, he does not quote any Bible verses in support of his killing spree, nor did he shout "praise the Lord" as he picked people off.
Pg. 4.
In the last ten years, there have been perhaps a dozen or so religiously-inspired killings by people of all other faiths combined. No other religion produces the killing sprees that Islam does nearly every day of the year. Neither do they have verses in their holy texts that arguably support it. Nor do they have large groups across the globe dedicated to the mass murder of people who worship a different god, as the broader community of believers struggles with ambivalence and tolerance for a radical clergy that supports the terror.
Muslims may like to pretend that other religions are just as subject to "misinterpretation" as is their “perfect” one, but the reality speaks of something far worse.
Is this what they teach you at Univ of Houston?
That is to deny reality and make up a PC version of it instead?
Let's get real. The reason the NYPD did what they did is because 99% +/- of terrorists are Muslims and the Muslim Student Assn has often beee used as a tool for these terrorists.
Of course if you would rather believe in the tooth fairy there always is that option too.