The Perils of Excessive Policing, in Both the U.S. and France

Ongoing debates over excessive policing, civil liberties violations, and the war on terror collided earlier this week in Philadelphia. There, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit heard arguments related to the constitutionality of the New York Police Department's mass surveillance of Muslims, over which the recent attacks in Paris cast a disconcerting pall.

The lawsuit was first filed against the NYPD long before the Charlie Hebdo killings, of course, back in 2012, by the Center for Constitutional Rights and civil rights group Muslim Advocates. It contends that surveilling Muslims solely on the account of their religion violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment.