The New York City Police Department has agreed to stop surveilling people in New Jersey in investigations based solely on their race, religion, or ethnicity as part of a legal settlement between the city and Muslim American plaintiffs.

This is the third and latest settlement that came about as a result of the reporting by the Associated Press. The others prevented the NYPD from spying based on religion in New York.

The Muslim plaintiffs alleged in a 2012 lawsuit that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks NYPD officers violated their civil rights by surveilling them solely on the basis of their religion.

“People were being targeted by the NYPD for going about their everyday lives, their houses of worship, going to business that happened to be Muslim owned. Simply because they were Muslim they were being targeted,” said Farhana Khera, president and executive director of Muslim Advocates, an advocacy group representing the plaintiffs.



The terms of the settlement also state that the plaintiffs in the case will be allowed to provide input on a forthcoming NYPD policy guide that will cover proper conduct and guidelines for its investigations. The settlement also requires that the policy guide be publicly available.

According to the settlement, the city will also pay damages to the plaintiffs, which include businesses, mosques, Muslim student groups, and individuals that were surveilled.



Khera said the settlement will help law enforcement be more transparent about their policies while sending a message that blanket surveillance of religious or ethnic groups are not only unlawful, but ineffective.

“We definitely see this as an important and, frankly, a landmark settlement for the Muslim community and civil rights for our country,” said Khera.

The civil rights lawsuit came after a Pulitzer Prize–winning series by the AP detailed how the NYPD's Intelligence Division's Demographic Unit worked with the CIA to surveil Muslim communities in the New York area, including in neighboring New Jersey.

