Adeela Khan didn't think twice before forwarding an email about an upcoming Islamic conference in Toronto to fellow Muslims back in 2006.
But that simple act didn't go unnoticed by a New York Police Department intelligence analyst more than 300 miles away. Khan's email was combed through; her name was recorded and put into a secret "Weekly Muslim Student Association Report."
On Saturday, the Associated Press reported on the NYPD's monitoring of Muslim student groups in the northeast, including UB's Muslim Student Association, and Muslims at UB have called the department's actions "an infringement of civil rights."
Khan, a UB graduate, was a board member for UB's MSA while she was here.
Khan contacted The Spectrum to clarify Monday's article, "NYPD Spied on UB's Muslim Student Association," by Senior News Editor Luke Hammill.
"Your article implies that I knowingly advertised an event that featured allegedly controversial speakers, which was simply not the case. At the time I was an Executive Board member of the Muslim Student Association. As the AP article clearly stated, I forwarded an email I received to the MSA membership via our Yahoo! group.
"I was not affiliated with the event, nor did I know who was speaking at the event, as the original e-mail did not list the speakers," Khan continued. "Your article made it appear as though I had some intimate knowledge of the event, when I was merely passing information on to the membership. I did not post any link to any news boards or other Internet sites."
All of the NYPD's investigations were conducted without UB's knowledge or permission, according to a university statement.
The president of UB's MSA responded to The Spectrum's questions with an electronic memo. He requested that no names of MSA board members appear in this article.
The memo notes that the NYPD has no jurisdiction over the Western New York area.
"There are thousands and thousands of participating members of MSAs in the U.S. and Canada," the memo reads. "The motives and goals of these MSAs are in no way correlated to the propagation of extremism and hatred…MSAs around the country try their best to spread peace and bring unity."
The memo also said "such an act of discrimination [by the NYPD] only drives enthusiastic and optimistic young Muslims away from mainstream American society."
The NYPD, with help from the CIA, was monitoring not only UB's MSA, but also Muslim groups at other schools across the northeast – including Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, Syracuse University, and SUNY campuses in Albany and Stony Brook, among others. This was because 12 people who were arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the U.S. and abroad had once been members of Muslim student associations, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne to the AP.
NYPD reportedly monitored student websites, collected other publicly available information, and even sent an undercover officer on a whitewater-rafting trip with 18 Muslim students from City College of New York, according to AP reports.
The treasurer of UB's Student Association, who is Muslim and was president of the MSA last year, told The Spectrum on Sunday that the NYPD's actions constitute profiling. He didn't want to have his name printed because if his name appears anywhere near the word "terrorism," he risks being listed in NYPD and FBI reports.
The NYPD's policy regarding profiling is as follows, according to New York City Administrative Code § 14-151:
"‘Racial or ethnic profiling' means an act of a member of the force of the police department or other law enforcement officer that relies on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin as the determinative factor in initiating law enforcement action against an individual, rather than an individual's behavior or other information or circumstances that links a person or persons of a particular race, ethnicity, religion or national origin to suspected unlawful activity…Every member of the police department or other law enforcement officer shall be prohibited from racial or ethnic profiling."
Faizan Haq, a professor of Muslim culture at UB, doesn't believe the NYPD investigations are just an attack on Muslims; rather, he thinks they are an invasion of the privacy of all Americans, regardless of culture, race, or religion.
"The way I would take it, as an American…are we a nation of law or are we not a nation of law?" Haq said. "And if we are, a law has to be applied equally and without hesitation to everyone. It is not an assault on Muslims, it's not an assault on MSA; it is an assault on America."
He continued on to say that it's very obvious that the NYPD's investigations violated civil rights. Haq added that if members of society keep opening the door to government "snooping," it will lead to a "bottomless pit of tyranny."
"Usually, students are the leaders," Haq said. "All over the world, students and young people have taken it upon themselves, so I think they have to decide, do they want to [enact] leadership on this or [do they not] want the leadership on this?"
The AP report also said another NYPD intelligence report – from Jan. 2, 2009 – described a trip by three NYPD officers to Buffalo. They met with a "high-ranking member" of the Erie County Sherriff's Department to discuss the development of "assets to act as listening posts within the ethnic Somalian community," according to the AP article.
The article also quoted an Erie County Sheriff's Department official as saying, "There are some Somali Professors and students at SUNY-Buffalo, and it would be worthwhile to further analyze that population."
The Erie County Sheriff's Department declined to comment about the matter when contacted by The Spectrum.
"Sheriff Howard and former undersheriff Richard Donovan did meet with the NYPD official," said Mary Jacobs, the public information officer for the Sheriff's office. "Sheriff Howard is the co-chair of the counterterrorism task force here in Erie and Niagara Counties. As far as what was discussed or what was carried out, if anything, there is no comment."
As far as the monitoring, many wonder if this is the end or if the government will continue to probe into the lives of citizens – no matter the ethnic, religious, or cultural group.
"It has happened, and it may happen again," Haq said. "The only protection that we have is we live by our own values that we propagate for everybody else. At the end of the day, we have to draw a line from there – this is who we are and this is who we are not."
Email: news@ubspectrum.com
