CHICAGO — The tip was a surprise when it arrived on the desk of Ted Wasky. Had it not come, the former FBI agent fears five Muslim men in northwest Ohio might have pulled off a plot to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
The source of the tip? A fellow group of Muslims living in Toledo.
“They were talking about Jihad and wanting to defend their … brothers in the Middle East against American aggression,” Wasky said. “The community understood the freedoms they enjoyed in the U.S., were concerned, and they reported it to the joint task force.”
The tipsters trusted the police enough to help the FBI infiltrate the group with an informant. Wasky said that relationship was the “best thing that ever happened” to the local joint terrorism task force when he was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cleveland office.
That’s what police investigators, prosecutors and mayors in cities nationwide say the New York Police Department is putting at risk by conducting clandestine surveillance of Muslims in the city and across the Northeast. All cite their experience in serving communities that are home to large Muslim communities and other minority populations that have become isolated by events.
“It only takes one perceived mistake, whether it’s a mistake or not, where the confidence of the community will be temporarily shattered or damaged,” Wasky said.
Others said the NYPD’s secret spying, and the voracious defense against suggestions it might be a mistake, is a misguided approach that will hinder the department’s efforts to uncover potential attacks for years, if not decades.
That critique has been forcefully rejected by the NYPD and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has praised the department’s tactics as ones that have kept the city safe in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The department’s spokesman last week said the NYPD retains “strong ongoing relations in the Muslim community” and pointed to successful anti-terror arrests he said have resulted from its intelligence operations.
But the most striking criticism came Wednesday from the head of the FBI’s office in Newark, N.J.
Special Agent in Charge Michael Ward said the spying program had already started to erode communication between the Joint Terrorism Task Force and Muslims in northern New Jersey and had created additional risks.
“People are concerned that they’re being followed. They’re concerned that they can’t trust law enforcement, and it’s having a negative impact,” Ward said. “No matter what kind of operation you do, nothing is going to compare to your ability to have the confidence of the public and go out and sit down and conduct interviews and get their assistance.”
