SALON

Wednesday, Oct 5, 2011 10:15 PM UTC

Let's help the NYPD cut costs

If policing Occupy Wall Street is too expensive, why not save money by not illegally spying on Muslims?

By

Topics: New York City, Islam, Wall Street, New York,

Let's help the NYPD cut costs Police escort Occupy Wall Street protesters marching in New York on Wednesday. (Credit: AP/Seth Wenig)

When the NYPD arrested hundreds of people participating in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration last weekend, in an echo of their illegal arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention, the movement actually grew in size and scope, with thousands of people today participating and more to join later this week. The usual “sweep the hippies into jail because no one cares” strategy did not really work, this time. So here’s the next tactic, which I imagine you’ll be seeing in the Post (and probably the Daily News!) soon: The city will have to move against Occupy Wall Street because it’s too expensive to allow them to continue.

Queens City Councilman Peter Vallone tested this line today, claiming the protests were actually making New Yorkers more vulnerable to terrorism!

“This is costing a lot of money, at a time when we are being warned that we may face revenge attacks from al-Qaida because of our recent drone strike,” said Councilman Peter Vallone of Queens.

Vallone, chair of the Public Safety Committee, said he’ll be asking for an accounting at the end of it all.

“We’re going to spend hundreds of thousands, maybe even $1 million on this that we don’t have. Because of these protests, we might even wind up shutting down schools and firehouses because this is costing a lot of money.” Vallone said.

You monsters are going to shut down schools, by peacefully demonstrating while monitored by a small army of heavily armed police officers (not counting the undercover officers surely out “protesting” amongst you right now).

Vallone told Justin Elliott that the mayor should decide when to “limit” the protests (sweep everyone into jail, which will surely also be expensive) in order to save some cash, but I think the NYPD could probably find a bit of extra money if they shut down their vast, international and questionably legal intelligence-gathering and racial profiling-based spying network? You know, the one the AP has been reporting on brilliantly for a few weeks now?

I bet the NYPD would save a lot of money if it didn’t attempt to extensively track the movements of every Muslim person in the city, for one thing. Like the undercover officer assigned “to monitor a prominent Muslim leader even as he decried terrorism, cooperated with the police, dined with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning series by The New York Times about Muslims in America.”

The FBI had no interest in Sheikh Reda Shata, because he is a moderate man of peace, but the NYPD thought he was a very serious threat:

Police assigned an undercover officer and an informant to watch Shata personally, and two others were assigned to watch his mosque, according to the NYPD files. Mark Mershon, the FBI’s senior agent in New York in 2006, said he has no recollection of Shata ever being under FBI investigation.

You know what would be a good way to “radicalize” moderate American Muslims? To constantly spy on them, secretly record their every move, and suspect them without cause of aiding terrorists, all while lying to their faces about the NYPD not engaging in profiling, as Commissioner Ray Kelly did while addressing a mosque under NYPD surveillance last year.

So if Occupy Wall Street is costing the city too much money to police, I recommend they cut back a bit on expensive violations of our civil liberties.

Alex Pareene

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 10 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
136 points137 points | comment
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
122 points123 points | 12 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
106 points107 points | 83 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
99 points100 points | 24 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
74 points75 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations