Author: Bukh Law Firm, PC: Arkady Bukh
“New York Criminal Defense Attorney”
On October 25, 2012, the Associated Press reported the story of a young man that the NYPD apparently recruited to “spy” on various Muslim student groups around the NY area. The man, named Shamiur Rahman, apparently came to the attention of the police department after having accumulated a few misdemeanors related to marijuana use. According to Rahman, the NYPD was paying him as much as $1000 a month and all of his expenses to travel to various functions at places such as the John Jay School of Criminal Justice. Mr. Rahman was born in the United States and has a Bangladeshi heritage.
He stated to the AP that the police told him that “We need you to be one of them. It’s street theater.” He was instructed to discuss “jihadism” and then tape the reactions of those people he was speaking with. By taking on this “role” Mr. Rahman had hoped to gain some favor with the police, make a little money and help fight terrorism. As he had no particular “spy” training, he videotaped people indiscriminately and listened in on all sorts of conversation. In the course of this job, he states that he personally did not see any criminal activity on the part of the members of the various Muslim groups. After about doing this for a while, he felt bad about it and when he saw the groups doing good works such as feeding the hungry, he decided to end his spying and admitted to his friends what he had been doing.
The President of John Jay College was outraged and said that the collegiate atmosphere was meant to be one for the free exchange of different ideas and opinions without fear of spying. Do not think this was just one man, reportedly the NYPD had several informants that they were “running” in Muslim areas and they were heavily supported by the CIA.
Once again we have to look at whether we need to give up basic freedoms in order to live in a country free of terrorism. This has been a complex problem ever since the attacks on September 11, 2001 and as freedoms are disappearing; people are finally seeing a problem with this type of activity. We need to weigh the use of this type of monitoring very carefully.
Contributed by a federal criminal defense attorney Arkady Bukh