“Earlier this summer, Thomas P. Galati, commanding officer of the New York Police Department's elite intelligence division, sat for an unusual legal interrogation, during which he talked of his keen interest in Urdu-speaking New Yorkers,†Michael Powell wrote in The New York Times.
“ ‘I'm seeing Urdu,' Assistant Chief Galati said of the data generated by his eight-person demographics unit,†Mr. Powell wrote, “which has eavesdropped on thousands of conversations between Muslims in restaurants and stores in New York City and New Jersey and on Long Island.†The officer told Mr. Powell: “I'm using that information for me to determine that this would be a kind of place that a terrorist would be comfortable in.â€
Assistant Chief Galati expressed similar sentiments about Bengali speakers:
“The fact that they are speaking Bengali is a factor I would want t o know,†he said, adding that the information was used solely to be able to determine where “I should face a threat of a terrorist and that terrorist is Bengali.â€
But here is the problem for those eager spies among us. Asked if all of this compiling of Urdu- and Bengali- and Arabic-language hangouts, and all of this listening in on the chatter, had resulted in tips about potential terrorist plots, Chief Galati conceded it had not.
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