Press Releases

Highlights of AP's probe into NYPD intelligence operations

AP reporting on NYPD is among Polk Award winners
AP story

LIU Announces 2011 George Polk Awards in Journalism
Press Release

For their investigative series that brought attention to the controversial tactics of the New York Police Department’s intelligence operations, a team of four Associated Press reporters earned the George Polk Award for Metropolitan Reporting. Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Chris Hawley and Eileen Sullivan collaborated on an investigation that showed the NYPD had built one of the largest domestic intelligence agencies in the country. The operations, conducted with advice and guidance from the Central Intelligence Agency, were secret until the AP series. The AP reporters documented how the NYPD assigned "rakers" and "mosque crawlers" to ethnic neighborhoods, infiltrating everything from booksellers and cafes to Muslim places of worship. The stories renewed debate over how far government should go and what tactics it should use to prevent another major terrorist attack in the United States.

The AP investigative team, left to right, Chris Hawley, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Matt Apuzzo.

Since August, AP has been publishing stories from its ongoing investigation into secret intelligence operations set up by the New York Police Department following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

AP's investigation has revealed that the NYPD dispatched undercover officers into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program. Police also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there was no evidence of wrongdoing.

The AP also determined that police subjected entire neighborhoods to surveillance and scrutiny, often because of the ethnicity of the residents, not because of any accusations of crimes. Hundreds of mosques and Muslim student groups were investigated and dozens were infiltrated. Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit after 9/11.

Below, you can see the AP investigative team's body of work to date, including the following records:

The Demographics Unit


Sept. 25, 2007 Newark, N.J. Demographics Report

Aug. 3, 2006 Suffolk County Demographic Report

Feb. 14, 2007 Nassau County Demographics Report



Nov. 22, 2006 NYPD Weekly MSA Report

NYPD analysis on Iranians in NY

Jan. 26, 2006 NYPD Note-Subject: Supervisors Conferral with Detective


Moroccan Locations


AP Interactive


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AP story


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Press Release

Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley
Associated Press
“NYPD Intelligence Division”

The New York Police Department, in close collaboration with the CIA and with nearly no outside oversight, developed clandestine spying programs that monitored and catalogued daily life in Muslim communities, from where people ate and shopped to where they worked and prayed. AP’s reporting led three dozen lawmakers in Washington to call for House Judiciary Committee and Justice Department investigations.