NYC Cop Sues City For Anti-Muslim E-Mail Harassment

In New York City, an Egyptian-born police captain in the city's elite anti-terrorism Cyber Unit has sued the city and a counter-terrorism adviser to the police department in federal court, charging them with religious discrimination. The suit involves daily e-mail briefings sent to the Intelligence Division by Bruce Tefft who worked for a company called Orion that provided the police with open source intelligence from its data base. The informational messages were preceded by virulent anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements from Tefft. The city's contract with Orion ended in 2003, but Tefft on his own continued to send e-mail messages until the Department moved ineffectively to block them in 2005, and only succeeded in doing so earlier this year. The New York Daily News and the New York Times both cover the story.