science

Muslim Surveillance Program

Muslim Surveillance Program is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Muslim Surveillance Program rather than just read about it. In short: The Muslim Surveillance Program was conducted by the New York Police Department after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to monitor Muslims in the city. The NYPD dispatched "Mosque crawlers" or "rakers" to surveil mosques and Muslim communities and act as informants to the NYPD.

Key takeaways

Muslim Surveillance Program belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Muslim Surveillance Program to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Muslim Surveillance Program from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Muslim Surveillance Program was conducted by the New York Police Department after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to monitor Muslims in the city. The NYPD dispatched "Mosque crawlers" or "rakers" to surveil mosques and Muslim communities and act as informants to the NYPD. From 2001 until the program was exposed in 2011, the NYPD Intelligence Division employed these informants to photograph license plates of congregants, track the ethnic makeup of worshippers, and collect other information. These informants, sometimes called "rakers," also monitored other places where Muslims congregated, such as restaurants or student organizations, and in some cases attempted to bait people into making incriminating statements.

Surveillance of Muslims by NYPD The NYPD intelligence division began monitoring Muslims after the September 11 attacks with support from the CIA, which is legally prevented from monitoring US citizens on its own. The program monitored every mosque in the city, and "mosque crawlers" infiltrated dozens of mosques. The surveillance took place over a large geographical area and also included several mosques, restaurants, shops, and schools in New Jersey. Mosques in Pennsylvania and Connecticut were also targeted. Without any evidence of wrongdoing, the NYPD designated entire mosques as "terror groups," enabling them to spy on anyone who attended the mosque. In 2011, the Associated Press exposed the program in a series of reports that won the Pulitzer Prize. Two federal lawsuits were brought against the city for the spying, one by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2013. These lawsuits were settled in 2016. The settlement stipulated that the city should not spy on people based on their race, religion, or ethnicity, and that there should be some evidence of wrongdoing before spying on people. The New Yorker described the settlements as a landmark ruling. In 2014, the Demographics Unit of the NYPD Intelligence division was disbanded, although data collected by the unit may still be used.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Muslim Surveillance Program

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Muslim Surveillance Program claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Muslim Surveillance Program before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Muslim Surveillance Program ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Muslim Surveillance Program

In research: Muslim Surveillance Program appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Muslim Surveillance Program in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Muslim Surveillance Program is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Islam in New York City, Islamophobia in the United States, New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Muslim Surveillance Program outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Muslim Surveillance Program in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Muslim Surveillance Program means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Muslim Surveillance Program out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Muslim Surveillance Program in simple terms?

Why does Muslim Surveillance Program matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Muslim Surveillance Program?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Muslim Surveillance Program.