"Everything's amazing, and nobody's happy"

paach:

The Muslim Students Association at Penn recently learned that the NYPD monitored several Muslim student associations across the Northeast. We are disturbed and disappointed that the NYPD has viewed us as a potential threat on the basis of religious affiliation. We seek to establish a fun, inclusive, and engaging environment to create opportunities for the social, spiritual, and professional growth of those on campus interested in Islam. While enriching their college experiences, like other student groups, we also aim to positively contribute to the Penn and Philadelphia communities.  We hope and trust the University will continue to protect all members of the Penn community from undue harassment and profiling.

Excerpt from the article:
“The report, along with other documents obtained by The Associated Press, reveals how the NYPD’s intelligence division focused far beyond New York City as part of a surveillance program targeting Muslims.

Police trawled daily through student websites run by Muslim student groups at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and 13 other colleges in the Northeast. They talked with local authorities about professors in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students’ names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.”

WTF. That’s pretty messed up on NYPD’s part. SMH.