White House cash linked to police spying on Muslims

Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programmes that put entire American Muslim neighbourhoods under surveillance.

The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135m (€100m) to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area programme, known as HIDTA.

Some of that money — it’s unclear exactly how much because the programme has little oversight — has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighbourhoods. It also paid for computers that store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.

When NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was filled in on these efforts, his briefings were prepared on HIDTA computers.

The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and federal officials. It also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA computers. The HIDTA grant programme is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The disclosure that the White House is at least partially paying for the NYPD’s wholesale surveillance of places where Muslims eat, shop, work and pray complicates efforts by the Obama administration to stay out of the fray over New York’s controversial counterterrorism programmes.

The administration has championed outreach to American Muslims and has said law enforcement should not put entire communities under suspicion.

The Obama administration, however, has pointedly refused to endorse or repudiate the NYPD programmes it helps pay for. The White House last week declined to comment on its grant payments.

John Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, last year called the NYPD’s efforts “heroic” but would not elaborate. Homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano, whose department also gives grant money to the NYPD and is one of the lead federal agencies helping police build relationships with Muslims, has refused in recent months to discuss the police tactics.

Tom Perez, the JusticeDepartment’s top civil rights lawyer, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the NYPD.