Court Releases First Annual Report on NYPD Reforms after Landmark Muslim Surveillance Settlement
NEW YORK – A federal court overseeing unprecedented reforms in the wake of wrongful NYPD surveillance of Muslim communities made public late yesterday the first annual report of an appointed civilian representative, Stephen Robinson, a former federal judge. The report provides the public with its first direct insight into the workings of the “Handschu Committee,” a body that reviews NYPD investigations of First Amendment-protected religious and political activity for compliance with a judicially-enforced agreement.
The report revealed that the committee has denied considerably more NYPD applications for such investigations since the civilian representative assumed his position. Fewer applications have also been put forward now that the Civilian Representative is on duty. The average length of investigations approved by the committee has dropped to 340 days from 427.
According to his report, Judge Robinson has raised privacy and free expression concerns over investigations and the NYPD’s use of stale and uncertain information and unreliable sourcing. He also considered the circumstances where sensitive locations and institutions were targeted. It is unclear, however, whether such concerns and considerations were recorded in Handschu Committee minutes, which could inform future committee decision-making as well as possible additional oversight by the inspector general for the NYPD and by the New York City Council.
Judge Robinson also confirmed that the NYPD continues to monitor New Yorkers’ and others’ social media accounts. The report notes that the civilian representative has demanded actual social media content for review by the committee, and not simply summary descriptions.
Lawyers for plaintiffs in both the Raza v. City of New York and Handschu v. Special Services Division cases reacted to the release of the Civilian Representative’s report:
Hina Shamsi, ACLU National Security Project director:
“Judge Robinson’s first report brings greater transparency to NYPD investigations that needed reform because the police wrongly surveilled Muslims for years. The report shows Judge Robinson is asking pointed questions in scrutinizing investigations from the inside, and overall is making a positive difference. Although the police department keeps secret the total number of investigations it conducts, it's important that the number of investigation requests denied after scrutiny is higher than it was last year. We look to the civilian representative to ensure that the NYPD abides by the new standards, and that bias-based suspicion of Muslims or any other minority plays no role in the NYPD's investigation decisions.”
Ramzi Kassem, CLEAR founding director and CUNY professor of law:
“While it is heartening that during the civilian representative’s tenure, the average length of all Handschu investigations has decreased, it remains shocking that, on average, covert police investigations of New Yorkers’ and others’ protected speech last over 340 days. That holds especially true when these investigations focus almost exclusively on American Muslims. In August 2016, the inspector general determined that Muslim-identified individuals or organizations featured in more than 95 percent of all NYPD intelligence files reviewed. Nothing in the report indicates this dramatic over-policing of a minority group has ceased or even changed. We hope the civilian representative will examine closely if this outcome is consistent with the NYPD’s legal obligation not to discriminate.”
Arthur Eisenberg, NYCLU legal director:
“This report is a reminder to New Yorkers and to the NYPD of the importance of the NYPD’s commitment to conduct its investigations of political activity in conformance with constitutional guarantees. This includes the right of individuals and organizations to be free from investigations in which race, religion or ethnicity are substantial or motivating factors.”
Jethro M. Eisenstein, Handschu attorney:
“We applaud Judge Robinson for embracing the spirit of the Modified Handschu Guidelines. His efforts are shaping the way the Handschu Committee operates, causing it to scrutinize requests to investigate protected religious and political activity with greater care.”
The Court established the position of a civilian representative to settle claims in two cases against the NYPD, Raza v. City of New York and Handschu v. Special Services Division. Lawyers for Raza include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project of Main Street Legal Services at CUNY School of Law, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP. Lawyers for Handschu include the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Raza was brought in June 2013 on behalf of religious and community leaders, mosques, and a charitable organization alleging they were caught in the NYPD’s dragnet surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers. The suit charged that the NYPD violated the U.S. and New York State Constitutions by singling out and stigmatizing entire communities based on religion. The case sought systemic reforms to prevent law enforcement abuses.
The Handschu case is a long-standing class action that addresses surveillance by the NYPD of First Amendment-protected activity and that seeks to limit excessive and unreasonable investigatory practices. The rules governing NYPD surveillance of political and other First Amendment-protected activity are called Handschu Guidelines, originally ordered by the court in 1985 but weakened in 2003 following NYPD requests to the court. In 2013, lawyers in the Handschu case arguing that the NYPD’s investigations of Muslims violated a long-standing consent decree in the case that protects New Yorkers’ lawful political and religious activities from unwarranted NYPD surveillance.
Among provisions of the 2017 settlement of both cases was the appointment of a civilian representative empowered to report to the court at any time if there are violations of the Handschu Guidelines, and who is required to report to the court if there are systematic violations and to report to the court on an annual basis. This first report reveals that the NYPD has allowed the civilian representative access to the NYPD’s investigative process beyond what the settlement requires, including to investigative briefings and top officials within the Intelligence Bureau.
In addition to Imam Raza, the plaintiffs in the Raza case are Asad Dandia, Masjid Al-Ansar mosque, the charity Muslims Giving Back, Masjid At-Taqwa mosque, and Mohammad Elshinawy.
In addition to Shamsi, Kassem, and Eisenberg, lawyers on the Raza case include Ashley Gorski and Patrick Toomey of the ACLU, Naz Ahmad and Tarek Z. Ismail of CLEAR, Beth Haroules of the NYCLU, and Hector Gallegos, Kyle Mooney, and Adam Hunt of Morrison & Foerster LLP.
Lawyers on the Handschu case are Eisenberg, Jethro M. Eisenstein, Martin R. Stolar, Paul G. Chevigny, and Franklin Siegel.
National Security
Raza v. City of New York - Legal Challenge to NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program
National Security
Raza v. City of New York - Legal Challenge to NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program
Learn More About the Issues in This Press Release
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.