A new report describes the concrete ways a clandestine spying program has caused individuals and communities to suffer.

The Atlantic:

America’s largest city, an ethnically diverse, politically liberal melting pot of more than 8 million people, routinely violates the civil liberties of its racial and ethnic minorities. New York City’s “Stop and Frisk” policy, the subject of class action lawsuit, annually ensnares hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers, a majority of them black and Latino. Complaints about searches sans probable cause are constant. Listen for yourself as a 17-year-old Harlem boy is stopped, called a “fucking mutt” and threatened with a broken arm. Read about the part of “Stop and Frisk” that was already declared unconstitutional in federal court. See the appalled street protesters. The visible activism and vocal dissent is as it should be.

But the sustained public backlash against “Stop and Frisk” is also a reminder that Americans know comparatively little about the Muslim Americans whose communities haven’t just been disproportionately impacted by NYPD attention, but exclusively targeted in a deliberate, decade long policy of outright ethnic profiling.

As it turns out, many were too rattled to go on the record with complaints, and have spoken out for the first time only after being sought out by a coalition of civil-liberties organizations, which has compiled testimony that shows the high cost these innocents have paid merely for being Muslim in New York.

First, a bit of background:

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