Who Watches the Watchmen?

Well, I unfortunately can't say that I'm very surprised at the latest news of police state surveillance.

It turns out that the NYPD has been covertly keeping tabs on Muslim students all across the Northeastern United States, far exceeding the city-limits of their jurisdiction.  Students from as far away as the University at Buffalo, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania were targeted for a broad-reaching violation of privacy rights that extend even beyond the post-Patriot Act powers of the FBI.

From the MSNBC report:
"Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles (480 kilometers) away in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed."

Not one of the students investigated and included in the NYPD reports has been accused of any crime, either prior to or as a result of the investigation.

The reason given for the surveillance?
"Asked about the monitoring, police spokesman Paul Browne provided a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the United States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations"

Yep.  Of the millions of Muslims in America, and of the thousands upon thousands of young men and women who have once been actively involved in Muslim Students' Associations over the past decade or two, 12 of them have been arrested as terrorists.

There's nothing fuzzy about the math here.

For Mr. Browne's benefit, I've taken the time to compile a brief list of NYPD officers who have been arrested for felonies.  By 'brief', I mean that they appeared within the first 4-5 pages of Google results, and encompass only the past 2-3 years.  Admittedly nowhere near as exhaustive as his List of Twelve, of course.


- Former NYPD Officer Edwin Coello Arrested for Murdering his Wife
- Ex-NYPD Officer Clarence Cash Arrested for Killing his Wife, a Criminal Investigator
- Three NYPD Officer's Arrested and Charged with Sexual Assault After Sodomizing a Suspect with a Police Baton
- NYPD Officer Arrested for Raping a Woman at Gunpoint
- NYPD Narcotics Officer Arrested for Giving Crack to Drug Addicts in Exchange for Sex
- 8 Members of NYPD Arrested on Federal Weapons Charges for Smuggling Stolen and Illegal Guns into New York City
- NYPD Officer Rafael Casiano Arrested for DWI Following a Crash which Left his Partner in a Coma
- NYPD Officer Arrested for Racially-Motivated Assault with Baseball Bat
- NYPD Auxiliary Officer Daniel Sayers Arrested for Child Pornography
- NYPD Officer Arrested on Federal Civil Rights Charges after False Arrest of African-American, Tells Wife Later: "I Fried Another N*gger"
- NYPD Veteran Officer Arrested for Indiscriminantly Pepper-Spraying Bar Patrons
- NYPD Officer Arrested in Connection With Money Laundering Scam
- Retired NYPD Officer Michael Oliver Arrested for First-Degree Reckless Endangerment After Discharging Two Rounds from a Firearm in Anger
- NYPD Officer Arrested for Theft and Misconduct after Stealing iPads from an iPad Thief
- Two NYPD Officers Arrested in Separate Drunk Driving Incidents
- Officer Raymond Gumti of the NYPD Arrested in ID Fraud Scam

That's 26 right there.  That should be more than enough to justify a KGB-scale surveillance task, by the NYPD's own logic.  It's a pity that there would be nobody left to conduct it . . .