CIA to Examine Its Own Ties With NYPD

Agency helped police monitor Muslim communities
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2011 2:18 PM CDT
CIA to Examine Its Own Ties With NYPD
CIA Director David Petraeus participates in a House Select Intelligence Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee joint hearing, on September 13, 2011.   (Getty Images)

Newly minted CIA director David Petraeus says the agency’s inspector general is investigating the agency’s role in helping the NYPD gather intelligence in Muslim neighborhoods, the AP reports. The NYPD’s unit, revealed in this AP investigation, was set up beginning in 2002 with the help of an agent still on the CIA payroll, despite laws prohibiting the CIA from domestic spying. Officers have infiltrated dozens of mosques and student organizations.

Testifying before Congress today, Petraeus said the probe had launched just before he took office a little more than a week ago. Petraeus said the agency wants “to make sure we are doing the right thing.” A CIA spokeswoman, meanwhile, released a statement confirming the probe, but insisting that “none of the support we have provided to NYPD can be rightly characterized as 'domestic spying' by the CIA. Any suggestion along those lines is simply wrong," according to Politico. (More David Petraeus stories.)

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