Trump calls for surveillance of mosques, Muslims
"We need more intelligence, we need a stronger intelligence community, Obama won't do that because he doesn't want to single out this group."
|||Washinton - The United States has the capability to prevent terrorist attacks such as the nightclub massacre in the US state of Florida but opposition from US officials, including President Barack Obama, to mosque surveillance robs law-enforcement of needed intelligence, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said in a television interview on Monday.
“We need more intelligence, we need a stronger intelligence community,” Trump told Fox News. “Obama won't do that because he doesn't want to single out this group.”
While commenting on a massacre of at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in the US state of Florida, Trump was especially critical of a 2014 decision by New York City Mayor Mayor Bill de Blasio to dismantle a police department agency known as the “Demographics Unit.”
“In New York City we had a fantastic intelligence group set up. When our mayor, our new mayor de Blasio... wiped it all out, it was the best in the country,” Trump said. “So now we don't know what's going on.”
The Demographics Unit sent plainclothes officers into Muslim neighborhoods to monitor conversations. In the process, the agency created detailed files on Muslims, including where they ate, shopped and worshipped.
At the time, de Blasio said disbanding the unit was necessary to restore trust between the police and communities.
In his presidential campaign, Trump has advocated monitoring mosques and Muslim communities to identify individuals who are being radicalized to commit terrorist attacks.
ANA-Sputnik