David Duprey / AP
In a search for potential terrorists, the New York Police Department monitored Muslim students at colleges and universities spanning the East Coast, the Associated Press has learned, many of them far outside of the city's boundaries. Between 2006 and 2007, detectives apparently pored over school websites every day and wrote down students' names in reports prepared for NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, despite the fact that they had never committed any criminal offenses. Attempting to justify the intense monitoring, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne provided a list of 12 former members of Muslim student associations (MSAs) who had been arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the U.S. and abroad. "As a result, the NYPD deemed it prudent to get a better handle on what was occurring at MSAs," Browne wrote in an email. The chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Syracuse University called the monitoring a violation of civil rights.