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melman

(7,681 posts)
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 01:15 AM Feb 2020

'We're Supposed To Do That': Bloomberg Defends NYPD's Spying Of Muslims After 9/11


In an interview that aired Thursday on PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg explained the New York Police Department's secret monitoring Muslims as an intelligence-gathering tactic that was part of a larger effort to keep America safe.

"We sent to some officers into some mosques to listen to the sermon that the imam gave," Bloomberg said. "We were very careful. And the authorities that looked at us said, yes you complied with the law. But we had every intention of going every place we could legally to get as much information to protect this country. We had just lost 3,000 people at 9/11. Of course we're supposed to do that."

---

Civil liberties advocates swiftly condemned Bloomberg's comments.

"The NYPD literally mapped our communities across three states, causing systemic self-censoring, distrust of any interaction with the government, and untold harm to our communities," said Arab American Institute Executive Director Maya Berry. "One's ethnicity or faith is not grounds for law enforcement scrutiny."

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, also criticized Bloomberg's defense of the spying activity.

"This is an insulting attempt to rewrite the history of an unconstitutional surveillance program that left Muslims, particularly in communities of color, devastated," Shamsi said. "It took brave Muslims and their supporters to go to court before the NYPD finally agreed to reforms to safeguard communities in New York and beyond. And no court ever said that the NYPD's discriminatory surveillance program under Bloomberg was lawful."


https://www.npr.org/2020/02/27/810181314/we-re-supposed-to-do-that-bloomberg-defends-nypd-s-spying-of-muslims-after-9-11?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Undecided
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'We're Supposed To Do That': Bloomberg Defends NYPD's Spying Of Muslims After 9/11 (Original Post) melman Feb 2020 OP
Watch the interview. elleng Feb 2020 #1
I saw it melman Feb 2020 #2
Oh poo! That was back when he was just a kid.... jcmaine72 Feb 2020 #3
Yeah melman Feb 2020 #4
This is an embarrassment to the party. Gravitycollapse Feb 2020 #5
bump melman Feb 2020 #6
 

elleng

(130,130 posts)
1. Watch the interview.
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 01:18 AM
Feb 2020
If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Undecided
 

melman

(7,681 posts)
2. I saw it
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 01:23 AM
Feb 2020

But why do you say that? Do you think he comes off well on this subject?

If I were to vote in a presidential
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jcmaine72

(1,773 posts)
3. Oh poo! That was back when he was just a kid....
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 01:36 AM
Feb 2020

...at age 69. He can't possibly be held responsible for something that he said, did, and wholeheartedly supported so many lifetimes ago. Besides, he's grown, nay, evolved so much since then, right?

What we really should be perpetually outraged about is not Mike Bloomberg's well-documented and recent history of racism, sexism, Islamophobia and Classcism, but what commie shenanigans Bernie Sanders may have been up to way back in 1949 inside Miss Crabtree's 4th grade class. I betcha he chewed a lot of Big Red chewing gum when the teacher wasn't looking. Bolshevik!

Do I really need to insert a sarcasm thingy here?

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primary today, I would vote for:
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melman

(7,681 posts)
4. Yeah
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 02:15 AM
Feb 2020

Bernie does a thing with a boombox - OMG HAIR ON FIRE OUTRAGE!!!


Bloomberg mass surveillance and systematic civil rights violations - ho hum whatever

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primary today, I would vote for:
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Gravitycollapse

(8,155 posts)
5. This is an embarrassment to the party.
Fri Feb 28, 2020, 02:17 AM
Feb 2020

We are the party of civil liberties and Bloomberg is taunting us with his backwards views.

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
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