http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/nyregion/06suit.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
Police Antiterrorism Analyst Sues City, Citing Anti-Muslim E-Mail For several years, the New York Police Department has touted an elite undercover unit of mostly Middle Eastern and Asian investigators who use their foreign-language skills online to search out potential terrorist threats against the city. But now the department is under criticism from a member of the unit, an Egyptian-born analyst who filed a suit yesterday that charges he was subjected to hundreds of blistering anti-Muslim and anti-Arab e-mail messages sent out by a city contractor over the course of three years. The analyst, not named in the court papers, filed the discrimination lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan as "John Doe Anti-Terrorism Officer" because he still works undercover in the Cyber Unit. In an interview yesterday, he said he complained repeatedly to supervisors but that no one took action. A 48-year-old captain with the New York City Department of Correction, the analyst has been assigned to work with the Police Department's Intelligence Division since 1998. He said he helped form the Cyber Unit there in 2002. The members, who number about a dozen, troll message boards and Web sites to engage extremists and collect intelligence about potential threats, the suit says. He fears that his family in Egypt may face retaliation if his name and the nature of his work were revealed, said his lawyer, Ilann M. Maazel. At the center of the lawsuit are e-mail briefing messages sent out several times a day to members of the Intelligence Division by Bruce Tefft, a former C.I.A. official who has identified himself in the past as the Police Department's counter-terrorism adviser. The e-mail messages were sent to everyone in the division, including Deputy Commissioner David Cohen, also a former C.I.A. official, the suit said. Mr. Tefft worked for Orion, which provided the police with terrorism information from its database, including news articles and materials known as open-source intelligence. According to the suit, the briefing messages were preceded by commentary from Mr. Tefft that included virulent anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements like, "Burning the hate-filled Koran should be viewed as a public service at the least," and "This is not a war against terrorism ... it is against Islam and we are not winning." In one, he asked, "Has the U.S. threatened to vaporize Mecca?" and responded, "Excellent idea, if true." The e-mails "ridiculed and disparaged the Muslim religion and Arab people, and stated that Muslim- and Arab-Americans were untrustworthy and could not reliably serve in law enforcement positions or handle sensitive data," the suit said. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the department moved to stop the e-mail messages when it became aware of a complaint about them. He said Commissioner Cohen was unaware of the "offensive commentary" until the complaint was made. "As soon as the Police Department became aware of a complaint about the content of e-mail sent by an individual not employed by the Police Department, we took immediate action to block his e-mails, followed by a cease and desist letter to the individual and his employer, a consulting firm," he wrote. In an interview, Mr. Browne said the department's contract with Orion ended sometime in 2003, but Mr. Tefft, apparently on his own, continued to send the e-mail messages. The department moved to block them in 2005, but he somehow was able to circumvent that and continued sending messages until the department acted again early this year. The analyst's lawyer, however, said there was no explanation for why the department had not reacted sooner. "It's incredible in this day and age that hundreds of racist e-mails could be sent to hundreds of N.Y.P.D. officials over three years, and not one person did a thing to stop it," Mr. Maazel said. Mr. Tefft did not respond to e-mail and phone messages. Soft-spoken and balding with drooping eyelids, the analyst described himself in an interview as a patriot and practicing Muslim who has lived the American dream. He said he came to this country in the early 1980s from Egypt, where he earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Alexandria. He became a citizen in 1993 and earned a master's degree at City College and worked mopping restaurant floors and washing dishes until he joined the Department of Correction, where he said he quickly rose through the ranks. He said he has a top-secret security clearance and worked for a defense contractor in Washington. The unit has been featured on "60 Minutes" and in The Wall Street Journal and The Daily News, and this analyst was so highly regarded that police officials allowed him to be interviewed, using his first name, as part of a publicity effort. "The N.Y.P.D. was happy to introduce us to the press --- 'Here these guys are, the best of the best, they are doing a great job,'." he said yesteday. "But then they failed to protect us under this smear, this constantly daily attack against my religion and against good Muslim Arab-Americans, and I will say good because the majority are good." +++ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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