Court considers Cold War secrecy over Muslim surveillance

The New York Police Department overstepped its reach when it used a Cold War-era legal tactic to conceal information about whether it put two Muslim men under surveillance, a lawyer representing the men argued Tuesday before New York’s highest court.

Omar Mohammedi told the seven-member Court of Appeals on Tuesday that the police department improperly invoked the federal tactic known as the Glomar response in a case involving state Freedom of Information Law requests.

Assistant corporation counsel Devin Slack, representing police for New York City, contends the department was justified when it said it could “neither confirm nor deny” the records even existed in its response to a 2012 public records request related to the surveillance.

The two men’s lawsuits over that so-called Glomar response were prompted by a series of Pulitzer Prizewinning stories by The Associated Press that detailed how New York City police searched for possible terrorists after 9/11, in part by infiltrating Muslim student groups and putting informants in mosques.

Former Rutgers University student Samir Hashmi and Manhattan imam Talib Abdur-Rashid filed formal requests seeking any New York Police Department records pertaining to surveillance of the two men or of any organizations they were affiliated with.

Their requests were denied, resulting in lawsuits that were initially heard separately, with two lower court judges issuing conflicting rulings.