Dear Friend -

Over the weekend, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg entered the 2020 presidential race. But, during his tenure as mayor, the New York Police Department enacted a sweeping, years-long surveillance and profiling program targeting Muslims in New York and New Jersey. 

Let me say that again: Mayor Bloomberg’s administration surveilled potentially thousands of innocent people just because they were Muslim. The spying program entailed video surveillance, photographed license plates and community mapping programs, and undercover officers infiltrated mosques, schools, businesses and restaurants. 

He consistently defended the program. He has never disavowed it or apologized to the American Muslim community. Tell former Mayor Bloomberg that he must finally acknowledge this discriminatory program was unlawful and misguided.

Ultimately, Muslim Advocates and our co-counsel at the Center for Constitutional Rights and the law firm of Gibbons, P.C. secured a landmark court ruling rebuking the NYPD program and reached a settlement requiring the NYPD to halt suspicionless surveillance activities on the basis of religion or ethnicity. In the words of plaintiff Imam Abdul Kareem Muhammad, "As Bloomberg owns up that stop and frisk was wrong, he should own up that it was wrong for the NYPD to spy on the Muslim community without provocation or justification."

Will you join Muslim Advocates and demand that Bloomberg disavow the program? 

Donald Trump even praised the spying program, saying, “we had great surveillance going on in and around mosques in New York City." And still, Bloomberg has stood by it. 

Take action! Tell Mike Bloomberg this sort of surveillance is wrong. 

Bloomberg’s program was a forerunner to the anti-Muslim proposals and policies of the Trump administration; tell him to disavow it now. 

Sincerely,

Farhana Khera

Executive Director

Muslim Advocates