RNA - Republican Congressman Peter King, who once went on an explicitly racist rant against then-GOP nominee Donald Trump and induced ripples of cringe throughout the nation with his thoughtless use of xenophobic slurs, is now holding meetings with the same man in hopes to launch a large-scale surveillance program targeting Muslims.
King met the president-elect at Trump Tower in Manhattan, reportedly urging him to create a federal Muslim surveillance modeled after NYPD’s failed and possibly illegal post 9/11 program.
“The main issues I discussed were what we have to do to have the Justice Department and the FBI be more leaning-forward when it comes to investigating Islamic terrorism,” King told reporters after the 45-minute meeting with the president-elect.
King said Vice President-elect Mike Pence, Kansas Rep. and Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, Mike Pompeo, Suffolk County Republican Chairman John Jay LaValle and Hempstead Town Councilwoman Erin King Sweeneywere also present at the meeting.
“I suggested a program similar to what Commissioner Kelly did here in New Yorkand that we can’t worry about political correctness,” the Islamophobic congressman added, referring to former New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly’s federal surveillance program targeting New York and New Jersey Muslims for over half a decade after Sept. 11 attacks.
As the Guardian reports, the controversial Demographics Unit, built with help from the CIA, collected databases on where members of the Muslim community lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Undercover law enforcement officials infiltrated Muslim student groups and mosques, eavesdropped on their conversation and monitored sermons.
The police also kept an eye of every New York Muslim who adopted a new surname.
The secret program, deemed unconstitutional by many, ran for over six years but yielded no results.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued New York City over Kelly’s Muslim surveillance program in 2013, tweeted this in response to King’s statement.
During his divisive presidential campaign, Trump frequently targeted Muslims, proposed to ban the 1.3 billion followers of an entire religion from entering the United States and called to create a national database of Muslims.
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