Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

t0rnado

(37 posts)
Mon Feb 20, 2012, 03:43 AM Feb 2012

NYPD Spies on Student Groups at Rutgers, Yale, and other US Universities

Back in October of last year, Unelected.org published an article detailing the investigation carried out by the Associated Press into the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) spying rings at city colleges like CUNY Brooklyn. Now, we have learned that what the AP released back in 2011 was just the tip of the iceberg as far as the NYPD’s infiltration program goes. Even though the NYPD’s jurisdiction ends at the city limits of New York City, the municipal police force, with the help of the CIA, has expanded its reach to various universities across the northeast including,

Rutgers University – New Brunswick & Newark campuses
Columbia University
Yale University
University of Pennsylvania
Syracuse University
Baruch College
Queens College
Brooklyn College

Documents obtained by the AP reveal that the NYPD wasn’t just passively monitoring student groups, which they refer to as “Muslim Student Associations”, but was sending undercover officers to meetings and in one instance a rafting trip. Undercover officers were actively seeking information from Muslim students and jotting down their information to later present to Raymond Kelly–the Commissioner of the NYPD.

This blatant violation of privacy and decency is akin to spying on cultural Russian student organization in the 1980s or Vietnamese student groups in the early 1970s.

Placing aside the apparent civil liberties concerns, there are two major issues at hand–one of which includes the FBI’s recent entrapment schemes.

The FBI and other three letter agencies have, in the past few years, created terrorists through entrapment, arrested them, and then boasted of foiling a terrorist plot and saving the day. … College campuses are ripe for both the FBI and the NYPD to launch more of these schemes to justify their existence.

Another major concern is renewed or continued spying on leftist student groups. Throughout the 60s and the 70s, the FBI and other state agencies infiltrated left-leaning student groups like the Students for a Democratic Society and wiretapped academics like Noam Chomsky. If the Occupy Wall Street movement reinvigorates itself this spring, the NYPD along with the FBI might restart or strengthen their programs against progressive groups on campus.

The full document obtained by the AP has been embedded below,


[link:http://www.unelected.org/nypd-spies-on-student-groups-at-rutgers-yale-and-other-us-universities|
Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Civil Liberties»NYPD Spies on Student Gro...