NYPD Spied On Muslim College Students All Across the Northeast

Last year, the Village Voice reported on the NYPD's "spectacularly offensive smear of American Muslims" in the form of a full-length Islamophobic training video. Now the AP comes forward with their investigative report that details how the NYPD watched Muslim students at colleges all across the Northeast, even as far as Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. The AP says that NYPD sent "an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip" to observe the Muslim students who went rowing because of course, nothing says "terrorist" like whitewater rafting.

The AP reports:

Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Here's a link to one of those reports that the AP has managed to obtain. The document is entitled "Weekly M.S.A. Report," M.S.A. standing for "Muslim Student Associations."

This whole mess really isn't helping Ray Kelly's battle with the press over the NYPD's expanding powers. Just last September, he was fighting off rumors that the police department possessed weaponry that could take down a jet. This report of multi-state spying isn't doing his image any favors.

[@mylestanzer]