‘More safeguards needed in NYPD spying on Muslims’

NEW YORK — A federal judge on Monday issued a ruling calling for changes to be made to a landmark settlement that would strengthen surveillance protections for US Muslims in New York. The ruling, issued after more than a year of negotiations, would allow the long-awaited settlement to be approved. The judge said that the proposed deal does not provide enough oversight of an agency that he said had shown a “systemic inclination” to ignore rules protecting free speech and religion. The proposed settlement, announced in January in response to two separate lawsuits—Raza v. City of New York and Handschu v. Special Services Division—would implement rules to ensure that the New York Police Department (NYPD) cannot conduct investigations where race, religion, or ethnicity is a “substantial or motivating factor,” among other safeguards, and install a civilian representative within the department to reinforce those protections. In January, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, agreed to appoint a civilian lawyer to monitor the department’s counterterrorism activities as a means of settling two lawsuits accusing the city of violating the rights of Muslims over the past decade. But the judge, Charles S. Haight Jr., in an opinion published on Monday, said the settlement did not go far enough for an agency that had become “accustomed to disregarding” court orders. “The proposed role and powers of the civilian representative,” Judge Haight wrote, “do not furnish sufficient protection from potential violations of the constitutional rights of those law-abiding Muslims and believers in Islam who live, move and have their being in this city.” The decision means lawyers for both sides will have to negotiate changes to the settlement or fight the lawsuit in court. — Agencies