The president of Yale University has gotten his gown into a twist because NYPD anti-terror detectives appear to have checked out the website of the school’s student Muslim association.
Hypothesis: Smart people can be pretty naive.
Proof: President Richard Levin‘s statement decrying “disturbing news reports” that the department’s Intelligence Division “may have conducted improper surveillance of Muslim students.”
Yale’s chief was responding to the latest Associated Press attempt to depict the division as stocked by spies who spy on everything there is to spy on among Muslims for no apparent reason other than that they are Muslims.
Left out of these fevered fancies are the facts that the NYPD is charged with stopping terrorist attacks before they happen and must develop knowledge in the most productive places.
Also deemed irrelevant is that, for the most part, the NYPD was simply clicking on the Internet addresses of various Muslim student associations to get a sense of information that has been posted for all the world to read.
If that is wrongful surveillance, so is reading billboards in Times Square.
Meanwhile, there are 12 reasons why the department felt it worthwhile to occasionally troll the student association websites. Each is the name of a radical Islamist terrorist who participated in such a group.
(1.) Aafia Siddiqui, who plotted against city landmarks and was convicted of assault with intent to murder U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan, was a Muslim association member at MIT.
(2.) Jesse Morton, who pleaded guilty to soliciting murder, visited Stony Brook University’s Muslim association to talk and recruit.
(3.) Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the airliner underwear bomber, had been head of the Muslim association at University College London.
(4.) Waheed Zaman, who was convicted of plotting to down transatlantic flights, had been head of the student Islamic society at London Metropolitan University.
(5.) Adis Medunjanin, who faces trial in April on a charge of plotting to bomb the subways, was a Queens College Muslim association member.
(6.) Anwar al-Awlaki, who encouraged the murder of Americans and Jews via the Internet, had been president of the Muslim association at Colorado State University.
(7.) Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn was a member of the Muslim association at the University of Southern California.
(8.) Ramy Zamzam, convicted of attempting to join the Taliban and kill U.S. troops, had been president of the Washington, D.C., council of Muslim associations.
(9.) Omar Hammami, a leader of the al-Shabaab terrorist group in Somalia, was once president of the Muslim association at the University of South Alabama.
(10.) Muhammad Junaid Babar, who pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offenses, was a Muslim association member at St. John’s University.
(11.) Syed Hashmi, serving 15 years for providing material support to Al Qaeda, was a Muslim association member at Brooklyn College.
(12.) Zachary Chesser, who pleaded guilty to aiding a terrorist organization, was a Muslim association member at George Mason University.
There’s no doubt that the vast majority of young people who belong to Muslim student associations are upstanding individuals.
Then again, the record shows that some have not been so benign. Keeping an eye out by reading public postings makes perfect sense and violates no one’s rights.