After Attack In Canada, Congressman Calls For More Surveillance Of Muslims In America

Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican said that the U.S. security agencies should try to thwart attacks like the one that took place in the Canadian Parliament this week by increasing surveillance on Muslims – and not giving in to “political correctness.”

“We have to find out what’s happening on the ground in these Muslim communities — what the NYPD used to do, but those morons at the New York Times Editorial Board and the American Civil Liberties Union went after them,” King said in an interview with NewsMaxTV’s America’s Forum.

He may have been referring to an Associated Press investigation into the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Operations which tracked activities in mosques and Muslim student associations. The investigation sparked lawsuits from civil rights groups, but wascalled off by NYPD officials in April before the matter was taken to court.

“The fact is,” King continued, “We have to find out what people are thinking, we have to find out who the radicals are; we have to find out what’s going on in the mosques which often are incubators for this time of terrorism.”

That may not have worked in the case of Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the gunman who killed a guard at a war memorial before being killed by another guard inside of Canada’s parliament building. That’s because Zehaf-Bibeau had been kicked out of mosques he tried to attend because of his erratic behavior.

“His behaviour was not normal,” David Ali of the Vancouver-area Masjid Al-Salaam told Canada’s National Post. “We try to be open to everyone. But people on drugs don’t behave normally.”

Mufti Aasim Rashid, a spokesperson for a community group which ran the mosque, added that the 32-year-old was asked to leave the mosque, because he had “gotten a hold of keys and stuff from the mosque, and when he got out of jail, he just started sleeping there.”

Zehaf-Bibeau had been convicted of several petty crimes starting in the early 2000s and, in December 2011, asked to be sent to jail to overcome a crack-cocaine addiction.

Susan Bibeau, Zehaf-Bibeau’s mother, told the Associated Press in an email that her son “did not fit in” and that she hadn’t seen him for five years before having lunch with him last week.

The sort of surveillance carried out by NYPD until earlier this year made use of informants as “rakers” and “mosque crawlers” to deliver would-be terrorists into the hands of law enforcement. These sorts of informants have been found, in large part, to develop terrorism plots and incentivize them with as much as $100,000 dollars.

Original Article
Source: thinkprogress.org/
Author:  BY BEENISH AHMED