Conor unpacks the findings of a recent report on NYC’s surveillance programs on Muslims, which he thinks produced more paranoia than intelligence:
Many regular mosque-goers have decreased their attendance, “and those who attend do so to just pray and leave, looking over their shoulders for eavesdropping spies the entire time. One young woman who is responsible for organizing youth activities in her mosque noted how congregants have internalized the need to self-edit religious Sunday school curriculum: ‘It’s very difficult, it’s very hard, you don’t know what to say, I have to think twice about the sentences I say just in case someone can come up with a different meaning to what I’m saying.'”
He rightly questions super-nanny Bloomberg’s reputation as a defender of free speech and religious freedom:
Suffice it to say that the NYPD’s surveillance program significantly affected the lives of its targets for the worse, making them frightened, paranoid, mistrustful of one another, less willing to participate in the civic process, and more inclined to practice their religion in isolation. If Catholics or Jews were targeted by a municipal police department in this way, utterly changing the dynamic of their faith communities for years on end, Americans would be outraged, doubly so if the surveillance produced zero leads and no evidence of averting any serious crime.
The Dish 