NYPD officers continue to spy on CUNY's college students

A statement was released on Thursday, Feb. 22 by Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and was followed up the next day by City College President Lisa Coico with a statement of her own in regards to the recent NYPD investigation of Muslim Students at CCNY.

The realization that Muslim Students were under surveillance throughout CUNY was discovered through recent media reports, mainly the Associated Press, which stated that the NYPD gave approval to undercover police officers to monitor Muslim student activities throughout various CUNY campuses.

While the alleged undercover procedures were traced by the media to around 2006-2008, evidence of such action by the police only began surfacing recently.

According to the AP, the police checked on Muslim websites from nearly 15 schools in the Northeast, among which were Brooklyn College, Baruch College and City College.

Yet it was apparent that this undercover investigation did not just target CUNY schools, but was part of a large-scale operation that focused on Mosques, places where Muslims shopped, libraries, bars, nightclubs and cafes.

A specific incident that stood out in recent reports was a whitewater rafting trap organized by 18 Muslim students from CCNY.

An undercover policeman was with the students on a trip and noted the number of times they prayed along with the fact that a lot of their conversations had to do with Islam.

The Muslim Student Organization of City College was not available for comment in time for the publication of this article.

How the policeman managed to accompany the students without being noticed is not clear, yet no complaint was made by any students at the College in regards to anything relating to the NYPD.

"The College became aware of the situation pretty much the same as everyone else: through the media," said John Mckee, Director of Public Safety at City College. "We certainly didn't get any complaints through Public Safety."

Mckee also acknowledged that Public Safety wasn't aware of the College organizing the rafting trip.

The NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly, backed by Bloomberg, don't see any need to offer an apology for what the police were doing.

The Daily News reported Kelly as saying he was "absolutely not" going to apologize.  In his words, he was doing his job in protecting the city.