The New York Police Department has disbanded a special unit that tried to detect terror threats in Muslim communities through secret surveillance.
The surveillance program by the NYPD Intelligence Division had come under fire by community activists who accused the department of abusing civil rights, said ABC News. "The program relied on plainclothes officers to eavesdrop on people in bookstores, restaurants and mosques. The tactic was detailed in a series of stories by The Associated Press and became the subject of two federal lawsuits," ABC News reported.