WASHINGTON, June 7, 2012 (WAFA) – Arab Americans came out in support of a lawsuit challenging the New York Police Department's (NYPD) well-publicized spying programs on the New York Muslim and Arab communities, a press release said on Wednesday.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) announced in a statement its support for a recent lawsuit against the NYPD filed by the civil rights group Muslim Advocates.

The lawsuit details countless acts of invasive and discriminatory spying authorized by NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and which has also been publicly supported by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said the ADC statement.

It “challenges the unconstitutional and discriminatory surveillance program conducted by the New York Police Department” against the city's Muslim and Arab communities.

According to Muslim Advocates, the first legal challenge against the NYPD detailed in the lawsuit is for intrusive practices targeting American Muslims and this lawsuit seeks a court injunction to immediately end the unlawful surveillance and the purging of secret files maintained by the NYPD.

“America is not safer when we spend valuable law enforcement resources on investigating the innocent multitudes rather than identifying the guilty few,” said Congressman Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey in a statement supporting the legal challenge. “This lawsuit is a thoughtful, sensible step toward bringing law enforcement practices back into line with constitutional protections and the standards of good policing.”

ADC Legal Director Abed Ayoub said in a statement supporting the lawsuit that “there should be no minority community in America- regardless of race, religion or nationality- who should be targeted and secretly monitored by police departments simply because of their affiliation to a certain minority demographic group.”

M.S.