Why the NYPD’s decision to drop a unit that spies on Muslims may help counterterrorism:
The Muslim-American community has served as a major resource for law enforcement since 9/11, with some scholars
citing Muslim-Americans as the single largest source of initial
information leading to disrupted terrorism plots since 2001. Such
community assistance is particularly important in stopping homegrown
attacks which tend to involve more “lone wolf” actors, making them more difficult to detect by law enforcement. Indeed, it was a Muslim immigrant who first reported suspicious activity in the 2010 case of Faisal Shazad, convicted in the Times Square bombing attempt.
The NYPD’s spying tactics,
guided by a former CIA official, stirred debate over whether the NYPD
was infringing on the civil rights of Muslims and illegally engaging in
religious and ethnic profiling. Findings from recent studies based on
MANOS data– a nationally representative survey of 500 Muslim-American
respondents collected online by YouGov in March 2013 –suggest that such
programs that unfairly target Muslim communities can create feelings of
cynicism and reduce Muslims’ willingness to voluntarily assist police in
criminal investigations.