Doing so would require the creation of a secret, highly-invasive intelligence unit in New York City that could “rival the FBI” and focus on the city in a way that national organization never could. For this, he’d need the help of David Cohen, a retired CIA officer who had also gone to Wall Street. Together, Kelly and Cohen, whom he appointed as the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for intelligence, launched a top-secret spying unit in New York City—the first of its kind.
To be effective at spotting “homegrown terrorists” and “thwarting their attacks,” the program wanted officers who could delve into the personal lives of innocent citizens in Muslim communities. Delve they did.
In the upcoming book Enemies Within, AP reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman rake through never before published NYPD documents and intelligence interviews to find out exactly how much damage this invasive spying unit did to innocent New Yorkers—most of whom were Muslims. The answer, Apuzzo and Goldman found, was a lot.
Below, nine shocking revelations about the NYPD’s top secret spying unit.
1. The NYPD labeled all Mosques ‘terrorism centers’
In order to gain access to Muslim houses of worship, NYPD lawyers created a new case category, which they referred to as a “terrorism enterprise investigation” (TEI). Using this terminology, they were able to classify any mosque as a potential terrorist hub, and the worshippers inside as potential suspects. This gave them freedom to record sermons, photograph worshippers, and spy on imams—all in the absence of specific evidence of criminal activity.