I have an op-ed in the NY Post, commenting on the role that bureaucratic turf fights may play in the Associated Press story looking for scandal in NYPD’s counterterrorism tactics.
Here’s a sample:
When you’re done [with the story], you find that NYPD is uniquely determined to find terrorists before they strike. To do that, NYPD is willing to go far outside its borders — to London, to Jerusalem, even to New Jersey.
It partners with counterterror analysts at the CIA. It looks for leads in places where terrorists have been found before – in immigrant communities and in mosques, for example – and it doesn’t give terrorists a haven where they know the cops can’t go. It takes advantage of its diversity by asking its officers to hang out in communities where they blend in. It recruits street sources wherever it can find them. It maps the neighborhoods it’s most concerned about.
Shocked yet?
Me neither.
So what gives? How come we’re getting this story, at this length, at this time?
One possibility is turf….