NYPD Intelligence Unit Seen Pushing Rights Limits : NPR: Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the New York Police Department has become one of America's most aggressive gatherers of domestic intelligence. Its intelligence unit, directed by a retired CIA veteran, dispatches undercover officers to keep tabs on ethnic neighborhoods — sometimes in areas far outside their jurisdiction.
The existence of the Intelligence Division & Counter-Terrorism Bureau has been public knowledge, but many of its operations were kept secret. An investigation by The Associated Press has uncovered new details about how the unit, led by Deputy Commissioner David Cohen, works.
"The lesson of 9/11 to the NYPD was, 'We can't sit back and just let the federal government tell us how to keep us safe or what intelligence we need to know or who might be after us,'" AP reporter Matt Apuzzo tells Morning Edition guest host David Greene. "We have to take responsibility for this ourselves, and we're going to go to wherever we need to go to get this information."
