‘NYPD skirted rules’:

Eure

Majors

The New York Police Department chronically skirted rules intended to protect political groups from unwarranted government surveillance while investigating Muslims, the city’s independent police monitor said in a report released Tuesday.

The audit, conducted by Inspector General Philip Eure, found that while the NYPD’s Intelligence Division had valid reasons to launch investigations, it frequently extended them past court-mandated deadlines without proper authorization.

In 100 percent of the cases reviewed by the inspector general, the department also didn’t adequately explain why it was extending investigations that hadn’t turned up evidence of unlawful activity.

“These failures cannot be dismissed or minimized as paperwork or administrative errors,” the report said. “The very reason these rules were established was to mandate rigorous internal controls to ensure that investigations of political activity — which allow NYPD to intrude into the public and private aspects of people’s lives — were limited in time and scope and to ensure that constitutional rights were not threatened.”

NYPD officials responded by characterizing the criticisms contained in the report by Eure as more technical than substantive.(AP)