NEW YORK CITY — The NYPD improperly spied on political organizations, most of them Muslim, between 2010 and 2015, according to a 67-page Department of Investigation report released Tuesday.
Investigators, who randomly sampled cases from that five-year period involving undercover officers in anti-terrorism operations which had never before been subject to independent review, found that police continued to spy even after their authorization to do so expired, according to the DOI report.
The operations, which are governed by rules called the 32-year-old Handschu Guidelines, also failed to elaborate how undercover officers and confidential informants were used and didn't explain why the spying needed to continue, the DOI found.
While investigators made clear that all the NYPD operations they surveyed were valid, they took issue with the manner in which the department went about seeking permission to continue their surveillance.
"This investigation demonstrates a failure by [the] NYPD to follow rules governing the timing and authorizations of surveillance of political activity," DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said.
"We will continue our oversight to ensure compliance going forward," Peters added.
In addition, the NYPD repeatedly failed to elaborate how undercover officers or confidential informants were being used and often filled authorization forms seeking approval for them with "boilerplate language," investigators said.
Police were so careless with these forms, investigators noted, that they often repeated the same typos over and over.
Police also failed to renew their operations before their authorization expired more than 53 percent of the time, although investigators also redacted the report so heavily that the DOI report doesn't specify how many cases they reviewed.
None of the investigations would have been hampered if police had followed the rules, DOI officials noted.
The Department of Investigation and the Inspector General for the NYPD issued 11 recommendations to the department about how to better follow the Handschu Guidelines.
Police officials thanked the independent monitors for their work in a letter to the mayor and city council and said many of their recommendations were already taking place or had recently been remedied by an electronic system that began operating on July 1.
"The NYPD will continue the work that has already begun to improve what is already regarded as a high standard of compliance, while also protecting New York City from the threat of terrorism," said John Miller, the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence.
An Investigation of NYPD's Compliance with Rules Governing Investigations of Political Activity by DNAinfoNewYork on Scribd
