NYPD keeps files on Muslims who change their names

[Liberal_in_LA]

NYPD keeps files on Muslims who change their names

For generations, immigrants have shed their ancestral identities and taken new, Americanized names as they found their place in the melting pot. For Muslims in New York, that rite of assimilation is now seen by police as a possible red flag in the hunt for terrorists.

The New York Police Department monitors everyone in the city who changes his or her name, according to interviews and internal police documents obtained by The Associated Press. For those whose names sound Arabic or might be from Muslim countries, police run comprehensive background checks that include reviewing travel records, criminal histories, business licenses and immigration documents.
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Sometime around 2008, state court officials began sending the NYPD information about new name changes, said Ron Younkins, the court's chief of operations. The court regularly sends updates to police, he said. The information is all public, and he said the court was not aware of how police used it.

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Early on, police added people with American names to the list so that if details of the program ever leaked out, the department would not be accused of profiling, according to one person briefed on the program.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/26/national/a000349D68.DTL#ixzz1bvIOtu3I