In Hassan v. City of New York, the plaintiffs claimed their civil rights were violated because they were observed and monitored by the NYPD solely because of their religious identity rather than for participating in any criminal behavior. Judge William Martini dismissed this case, stating in his decision, "The more likely explanation for the surveillance was a desire to locate budding terrorist conspiracies. The most obvious reason for so concluding is that surveillance of the Muslim community began just after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself" (Pilkington 2014).

This ruling reinforces the acceptance of the association of Islam with terrorism. It legitimizes the idea that it is necessary to treat Muslims with suspicion in order to uncover terrorist plots and threats.

XREF: Connects to broader literature on post-9/11 surveillance, Islamophobia, and how legal rulings institutionalize ethnic/religious profiling. SEED: Potential essay on how judicial language normalizes profiling by framing it as common-sense necessity rather than discrimination.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 57