A group of Muslims saying they were illegally targeted by New York City police Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will be allowed to argue their case in court, an appeals court has ruled. The Muslims alleged they were targeted based on their Muslim faith, a violation of their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit, filed in 2012, had been dismissed last year by a U.S. , who found that the Muslins hadn’t suffered any harm from the surveillance program and that the police were looking for terrorists.
The Muslims alleged the unit tried to infiltrate mosques, listened to and recorded conversations between Muslims and targeted Muslim-owned businesses for surveillance.
In its 60-page opinion, the Third Circuit in Pennsylvania, which covers New Jersey, where the alleged NYPD surveillance occurred, compared the surveillance program with now-condemned government actions from the past.”We have been down similar roads before. Jewish-Americans during the Red Scare, African-Americans during the civil-rights movement and Japanese-Americans during World War II are examples that readily spring to mind,” the judges wrote.
Jeffrey Newman represents whistleblowers.
