spying program
![Photo courtesy U.S. Department of State [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://sojo.net/sites/default/files/styles/medium_square/public/blog/512px-U.S._Secretary_of_State_John_Kerry_shakes_hands_with_Raymond_Kelly_Commissioner_of_the_New_York_City_Police_Department_NYPD-427x284.jpg?itok=1Tge9B5A "U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Raymond Kelly. Photo courtesy U.S. Department of State, via Wikimedia")
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Raymond Kelly. Photo courtesy U.S. Department of State, via Wikimedia
Muslim-American groups are mounting a growing campaign to quash the potential nomination of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Muslims say that as head of the nation’s biggest police force, the commissioner oversaw a spying program that targeted Muslims based solely on their religion, showed poor judgment by participating in a virulently anti-Islamic film, and approved a report on terrorism that equated innocuous behavior such as quitting smoking with signs of radicalization.
Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano announced she is resigning in September to become president of the University of California system.
“Mr. Kelly might be very happy where he is, but if he’s not, I’d want to know about it, because obviously he’d be very well qualified for the job,” President Barack Obama said in a July 16 interview with Univision.
Muslims are particularly indignant because Obama said on numerous occasions that he would work to end profiling.
Portrait of a man in a suit with an umbrella. Photo courtesy RNS/Shutterstock.com
After denials and evasions, we learned that two successive administrations lied to the American public about unprecedented spying on ordinary citizens.
The latest phase of this longtime spying effort began shortly after 9/11 and accelerated steadily, as the government used existing laws and newly passed laws to demand access to supposedly private information, such as cell phone call logs and email data.
It might have begun as an effort to track foreign terrorists as they interacted with allies in the U.S. and visited the U.S. But it spun out of control as the National Security Agency decided it needed to spy on all citizens.