The NYPD spying controversy: a microcosm for the 9/11 era

(updated below)

The NYPD spying program exposed by Associated Press may be the most flagrant instance in the War on Terror where "being Muslim" is overtly equated by a government agency to being a Terror threat. It is beyond question that huge numbers of completely innocent, law-abiding people — and the institutions to which they belong and even the businesses they patronize — were extensively surveilled and infiltrated for no reason whatsoever other than their religious and/or ethnic...