New York Colleges Concerned about NYPD Surveillance of Muslim Students

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Professors at the City University of New York's Law School have issued a statement warning that the spying on Muslim stydents at CUNY campuses may have violated civil rights laws. The Brooklyn College Faculty Council has passed a similar measure.

 Investigators have been infiltrating Muslim student groups at Brooklyn College and other schools in the city, monitoring their Internet activity and placing undercover agents in their ranks, police documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

 The infiltration was part of a secret NYPD intelligence-gathering effort that put entire Muslim communities under scrutiny. Police photographed restaurants and grocery stores that cater to Muslims and built databases showing where people shopped, got their hair cut and prayed.

 However, legal experts say the operation on campuses may have broken a 19-year-old pact with the colleges and violated U.S. privacy laws, jeopardizing millions of dollars in federal research money and student aid.

 In a few instances, NYPD detectives approached campus police for help, saying they were working narcotics or gang cases to win their cooperation and sometimes even access to records, the official said. Police used the records to identify students they were observing and get contact information, a law enforcement official said.

 Sometimes, school police even let the NYPD use campus buildings as a quiet, out-of-the-way place to interview informants after hours, the law enforcement official said.

 The colleges may have broken the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal statute, if they handed over student records without the students' consent, said Richard Rainsberger, a consultant on college privacy laws.

 The punishment for such disclosures is severe: a school can lose all of its federal funding.

 "That means every single federal dollar: the research funds, the federal loans, the Pell grants," said Meg Penrose, an expert on the privacy act at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law.

 U.S. Education Department spokesman David Thomas said the agency had not heard about the NYPD program. But he said colleges are generally barred from giving law enforcement agencies any student records without their consent unless police have a court order or subpoena.

 By 2006 police had placed NYPD undercover agents at Brooklyn College and Baruch, according to the documents obtained by the AP. At Hunter, City College, Queens College, La Guardia and St. John's, documents said there were "secondary" undercover officers. It was not clear from the documents if that meant the NYPD was relying on another agency's undercover officers or if the NYPD was one of two agencies infiltrating the groups.

 The City University of New York says it knew nothing about the infiltration at the time. Police have not acknowledged to administrators that such a program ever existed, CUNY spokesman Michael Arena said.

 But individual colleges said they were concerned.

 "It is our view that except in extraordinary circumstances where specific evidence links a member of a campus community to terrorist activities, the college community should not be involved with any such surveillance," said Maria Terrone, a spokeswoman for Queens College.

 "Had anyone on this campus been aware of this, we would have condemned it," said Jeremy Thompson, a spokesman for Brooklyn College.

 At Baruch College, administrators do not believe they have a problem with student radicalization, said spokeswoman Christina Latouf.

 Professors have called the surveillance an attack on academic freedom. The Brooklyn College Faculty Council unanimously passed a resolution saying it would have a "chilling effect on the intellectual freedom necessary for a vibrant academic community."

 Forty-three law professors at the CUNY School of Law signed a statement last week warning that such surveillance may have violated students' civil rights.

 Undercover officers may also have violated a 1992 memorandum of understanding between CUNY and the NYPD, said Ramzi Kassem, one of the law professors.

 That agreement says that in non-emergency situations, police "shall enter upon CUNY campuses, buildings and other property only upon the request or approval of a CUNY official."

 Meanwhile, students said they worried the surveillance on campus could follow them after graduation or extend to their families and workplaces.

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