Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly gave an impassioned defense of the NYPD’s controversial Muslim surveillance program Saturday — declaring it essential for the city’s safety.
The tactics, which allegedly include spying on mosques, cafes and shops, have come under fire from Muslim and civil rights groups, but Kelly said the Police Department’s strategy has been “misrepresented.”
“For some, the very act of intelligence gathering seems illegitimate when applied to the crime of terrorism,” Kelly said in his most wide-ranging remarks to date on the hot-button topic.
“In fact, the Police Department uses many of the same methods to find and stop terrorists that we use to arrest drug dealers, human traffickers and gang leaders,” the commissioner told a Fordham Law School alumni group.
Even as more than 100 protesters demonstrated outside his speech, Kelly did not back down, declaring that the surveillance program was not just legal, but a vital part of the successful takedowns of more than a dozen terror plots since Sept. 11, 2001.
“A broad base of knowledge is critically important to our ability to investigate terrorism,” said Kelly, who suggested that the NYPD did not do enough after the first World Trade Center attack.
“It was precisely our failure to understand the context in 1993 that left us vulnerable in 2001,” he said. “We won’t make that mistake again — on Mayor Bloomberg‘s watch or mine.”
Claiming reconnaissance was necessary to gather intelligence needed to penetrate dangerous groups, Kelly defended the NYPD’s focus on Muslim neighborhoods and student groups.
“We know that while the vast majority of Muslim student associations and their members are law-abiding,” Kelly said, “we have seen too many cases in which such groups were exploited.”
Kelly also defended the NYPD’s strategy of spying across state lines in New Jersey — sometimes without the knowledge of Garden State officials.
“The notion that the Police Department should close our eyes to what takes place outside the five boroughs is folly, and it defies the lessons of history,” Kelly said. “If terrorists aren’t limited by borders and boundaries, we can’t be either.”
His speech was met with skepticism by the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“No one disputes the NYPD can and should follow leads about terrorist activity,” said Chris Dunn, the NYCLU’s associate legal director, “but the recent disclosures suggest that leads have become an excuse for wholesale surveillance of the Muslim community.”
More than 100 people marched outside the Cipriani Wall Street ballroom where Kelly spoke, calling for the city’s top cop to step down.
“As a Muslim, it shocks me that we live in a city with policies that are discriminatory and racist,” said Sara Bokhari, 29, of Brooklyn.
“It’s shocking that we hold people, like Ray Kelly, up as supposed leaders and protectors,” she added, “when in fact he is destroying our community.”
Dozens of police officers kept a watchful eye on the demonstrators, who frequently broke out into “Fire Ray Kelly” chants, but no arrests were made.
“I want the resignation of Ray Kelly, but this protest is not just about a symbolic leader,” said Zohra Ahmed, 25, second-year Fordham Law student from midtown.
“It took a whole institution to do what they did.”