After Scandal, CIA Is Removing Agent from the NYPD

After a probe resulted from reports that the CIA was helping the New York Police Department set up surveillance programs in the Muslim community, the CIA is removing its agent from the NYPD, reports the Associated Press.

After a probe resulted from reports that the CIA was helping the New York Police Department set up surveillance programs in the Muslim community, the CIA is removing its agent from the NYPD, reports the Associated Press. The AP exposed the relationship between the CIA and the NYPD last summer, and since then, there's been outcry from Muslim-Americans and lawmakers. The CIA announced in September it would investigate the program, and now, the CIA's inspector general is pulling the agent from the program. The AP reports:

In its investigation, the CIA's inspector general faulted the agency for sending an officer to New York with little oversight after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and then leaving him there too long, according to officials who have read or been briefed on the inquiry.  ... [Under his program] Plainclothes officers known as "rakers" eavesdropped in businesses, and Muslims not suspected of any wrongdoing were put in intelligence databases.

That officer, Lawrence Sanchez, left the NYPD in 2010, and the CIA is now removing the person who replaced him. The AP reports that "confusion remains" with conflicting reports from the city and the CIA about the continuing relationship between the two organizations and the specifics of the program. But even as those get sorted out, it's heartening to see a press report prompt the secretive government agency to take a look at its own practices and make changes.