NEW YORK – The New York City Police Department routinely violated
court-mandated rules on handling investigations of political activity,
particularly Muslim groups or individuals, the department’s watchdog said in a
report released on Tuesday.

The 64-page report by the Office of the Inspector General
for the NYPD found police were non-compliant with a number of rules governing
the conduct of probes, including routinely extending investigations after their
legal authorization expired before seeking renewals. The examination also
showed that police used confidential informants without proper documentation.

The report said 95 percent of police investigations governed
by the guidelines involved individuals or political activities predominantly
associated with Islam. The report said it investigated cases closed between
2010-2015.

The report was intended to measure the department’s
compliance with a longstanding set of rules, known as the “Handschu”
guidelines, first imposed on the NYPD decades ago as part of a federal court
settlement.

“These failures cannot be dismissed or minimized as
paperwork or administrative errors,” the report said. “The very
reason these rules were established was to mandate rigorous internal controls
to ensure that investigations of political activity – which allow NYPD to
intrude into the public and private aspects of people’s lives – were limited in
time and scope and to ensure that constitutional rights were not threatened.”

The regulations were relaxed following the al Qaeda attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001, to allow police to expand counter-terrorism and intelligence
efforts.

Earlier this year, the city agreed to settle a lawsuit that
claimed a secretive NYPD program that conducted broad surveillance of Muslim
neighborhoods, mosques and businesses violated the Handschu guidelines. The
unit that oversaw those investigations was disbanded in 2014 after Mayor Bill
de Blasio took office.

At a news conference on Tuesday, police officials
characterized the violations as technical and administrative errors, not a
failure to renew expired cases.

John Miller, the department’s top counter-terrorism
official, said working within the guidelines of the law is necessary to stop
terrorist groups.

“If you’re investigating al Qaeda, and TTP and ISIL
plots against New York City, your investigating targets are going to be who
they are,” Miller said, referring to the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic
State.

This summer, the NYPD activated an electronic case tracking
system dedicated to all Handschu investigations that automatically tracks
renewed dates and authorizations, according to police documents.

“We take our Handschu responsibility very
seriously,” said Lawrence Byrne, the department’s deputy commissioner for
legal matters. “There was no violation of the Handschu laws.”