New Jersey Judge Dismisses Muslim Lawsuit Against NYPD

United States District Judge William Martini dismissed a lawsuit brought in 2012 by eight Muslims who alleged that the New York Police Department's surveillance programs were unconstitutional because they focused on religion, national origin and race, according to the Associated Press.

Judge Martini has ruled that the NYPD's surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey was a lawful effort to prevent terrorism, not a civil rights violation, the AP reported. The decision was filed Thursday in a Newark federal court.

The suit accused the department of spying on ordinary people at mosques, restaurants and schools in New Jersey since 2002, according to the AP.

In his report, Martini said he was not convinced that the plaintiffs were targeted solely because of their religion, the AP reported.

"The more likely explanation for the surveillance was to locate budding terrorist conspiracies," Martini wrote,

adding that "The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself," according to the AP.

Farhaj Hassan, a plaintiff in the case and a U.S. soldier who served in Iraq, said he was disappointed by the ruling, the AP reported.

"I have dedicated my career to serving my country, and this just feels like a slap in the face, all because of the way I pray," Hassan told the AP.

The Center for Constitutional Rights in New York and the California-based civil rights organization Muslim Advocates, which represented the plaintiffs, also said the decision was "troubling," the AP reported.

"In addition to willfully ignoring the harm that our innocent clients suffered from the NYPD's illegal spying program, by upholding the NYPD's blunderbuss Muslim surveillance practices, the court's decision gives legal sanction to the targeted discrimination of Muslims anywhere and everywhere in this country, without limitation, for no other reason than their religion," CCR Legal Director Baher Azmy said, according to the AP.

The AP released a series of stories based on private NYPD documents which showed how the Police Department "sought to infiltrate dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups in New York" and New Jersey.

Judge Martini said the AP's use of the documents were wrong, the AP reported.

"The Associated Press covertly obtained the materials and published them without authorization," Martini wrote in his report, according to the AP. "Thus the injury, if any existed, is not fairly traceable to the city."

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had been staunch supporters of the surveillance programs, saying they were needed to protect the city from terrorist attacks, and a similar lawsuit filed in federal court in Brooklyn is still pending, according to the AP.

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