See also: Al Qaeda holds big rally in Yemen

Candidate Bill de Blasio was “deeply troubled” by NYPD surveillance of mosques, and now his police commissioner is dropping the program. Matt Apuzzo and Joseph Goldstein report ion the New York Times:

The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said.

The decision by the nation’s largest police force to shutter the controversial surveillance program represents the first sign that William J. Bratton, the department’s new commissioner, is backing away from some of the post-9/11 intelligence-gathering practices of his predecessor. The Police Department’s tactics, which are the subject of two federal lawsuits, drew criticism from civil rights groups and a senior official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who said they harmed national security by sowing mistrust for law enforcement in Muslim communities.

The fact that thousands of New Yorkers were killed in the name of Allah by devout Muslims inspired by what they heard at mosques and that millions of Muslims worldwide believe that they can gain access to paradise and 72 virgins by slaughtering infidels means nothing to Mayor de Blasio, apparently. I can only hope that more New Yorkers do not die as a result of his political correctness.

To many Muslims, the squad, known as the Demographics Unit, was a sign that the police viewed their every action with suspicion. The police mappedcommunities inside and outside the city, logging where customers in traditional Islamic clothes ate meals and documenting their lunch-counter conversations.

Well, when devout members of your community proclaim that your religion requires them to slaughter New Yorkers, Americans, Jews, infidels, and even Muslims who don’t meet their standards of religious practice and devotion, then surveillance is reasonable, it seems to me.

 “The Demographics Unit created psychological warfare in our community,” said Linda Sarsour, of the Arab American Association of New York. “Those documents, they showed where we live. That’s the cafe where I eat. That’s where I pray. That’s where I buy my groceries. They were able to see their entire lives on those maps. And it completely messed with the psyche of the community.”

Psychological warfare?  How about terror bombings? How about constant threats? How about declarations that America is a Great Satan? These are not the acts of a few nuts, these views and acts are widespread, and are heard in mosques and media throughout the Muslim world.

De Blasio is making a wager with the lives of New Yorkers, betting on the peaceful intentions of Muslims. He should read Suras 9-14 of the Koran.