Excerpt:
Nearly 30 years ago, the federal courts had to place limits on New York City police surveillance to protect law-abiding citizens who happened to be politically engaged on civil rights and other issues. Based on new court filings in a longstanding suit challenging police surveillance techniques, the courts may need to intervene to stop the New York Police Department from spying on law-abiding citizens once again, this time Muslims.
The city's police came under court scrutiny starting in 1971 for what civil rights lawyers described as illegal surveillance by the department's infamous Red Squad, including its surveillance of Black Panthers who were acquitted on charges of conspiring to blow up police stations and department stores. The case, named for a plaintiff, Barbara Handschu, became a class action, spreading to other politically active groups, and was settled in 1985. The city agreed to follow court-ordered investigation guidelines that were loosened after Sept. 11 to ensure that the police had ample flexibility to ferret out terrorist threats.