Spying on Muslims is about as New York as it gets, since the NYPD took on the role of mini-CIA and created its own spying apparatus to the applause of appreciative New Yorkers who wanted only to be safe. As they did with the Black Panthers years ago, and whatever threat blinded the city to all those delightful constitutional freedoms they adore for themselves but hate for the bad guy du jour.

And New York City’s most progressive-ish mayor ever, Bill de Blasio, agreed to settle this latest violation, as the winds of social justice shifted and Muslims became a progressive protected class rather than presumptively dreaded terrorists.

In January, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, agreed to appoint a civilian lawyer to monitor the department’s counterterrorism activities as a means of settling two lawsuits accusing the city of violating the rights of Muslims over the past decade.

Problem solved? After all, isn’t this what we call for whenever police departments are caught doing the dirty, such as spying on citizens? We demand the feds sweep in and use their voodoo to make everything constitutional again. After all, if you can’t trust the integrity of the feds, whom can you trust?

But Southern District of New York Judge Charles Haight rejected the settlement.*

But the judge, Charles S. Haight Jr., in an opinion published on Monday, said the settlement did not go far enough for an agency that had become “accustomed to disregarding” court orders.

“The proposed role and powers of the civilian representative,” Judge Haight wrote, “do not furnish sufficient protection from potential violations of the constitutional rights of those law-abiding Muslims and believers in Islam who live, move and have their being in this city.”

The settlement got worse from there, allowing the mayor to decide that the threat of domestic spying by the NYPD was fixed and, after five years, to unilaterally throw the civilian monitor a going away party. Or just say “bye,” as the case may be. Of course, the mayor might not be de Blasio at the time, and the threat might not be the same Muslims, and the problem might not be fixed at all, but no court approval for the termination of the monitor was needed.

When Judge Haight called bullshit on the ability of a civilian monitor to make the NYPD behave constitutionally, the initial reaction was, “you go, Judge.” After all, he came out and said what everyone who paid attention knew, the NYPD doesn’t give a damn about these settlements, which it has grown “accustomed to disregarding.”  It’s like prosecutors getting their 397th stern lecture about disclosing Brady material, “or else,” with the “or else” being the 398th stern lecture.

But for Judge Haight, the smack leveled at the cops was a bit more personal.

It was Judge Haight who had first acceded to the city’s requests for relaxed rules after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The police commissioner at the time, Raymond W. Kelly, said civilian oversight and traditional restrictions on policing made the city less safe, and the judge agreed, saying the old rules “addressed different perils in a different time.” He eliminated civilian oversight and gave wide authority to the commissioner and his intelligence deputy.

By rejecting the deal, Judge Haight, of United States District Court in Manhattan, made a tacit acknowledgment that he had gone too far in that ruling.

Gone too far is an understatement, and calling this rejection a “tacit acknowledgement” is far too generous. Judge Haight succumbed to what so many passionately cry for today in a different context. After 9/11, the mantra was that it “changed everything,” and so the Constitution, the rule of law, was abandoned to accommodate public demands for safety. And the target was Muslims (and anyone who might appear Muslim-like, because it’s not like most Americans had a clue about Sikhs, for example, not being at all Muslim). Safety  über alles, and everybody agreed that we had to stop the threat (cue “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” chorus).

Having mucked it all up with the best of intentions at the time. Judge Haight determined not to make the same mistake again.  And the best team player ever, taking a few minutes off from writing about how Donald Trump’s steaks are untasty,** now applauds Judge Haight’s reversal of fortune.

Judge Charles Haight of Federal District Court in Manhattan pointed to that dishonorable record in a ruling made public on Monday in which he rejected the proposed settlement of two lawsuits brought against the city’s Police Department for its surveillance of Muslim citizens. The judge is right not to accept the settlement unless the city and the plaintiffs’ lawyers agree on a revision to strengthen oversight of the Police Department’s intelligence operation.

Judge Haight properly concludes that this arrangement would give the city too much power over the civilian monitor and provide too little protection from potential constitutional violations. He has offered suggestions for a better settlement, which include a more effective system for monitoring investigations; requiring the civilian monitor to provide the court with detailed quarterly reports; and restricting the mayor’s power to do away with the monitor without the court’s permission.

“It is a historical fact that as the decades passed, one group or another came to be targeted by police surveillance activity,” Judge Haight wrote in his ruling. The changes he proposes to the settlement are reasonable and, if carried out, will better protect all citizens from unconstitutional spying.

Now that everyone acknowledges, tacitly or otherwise, that the same things that were totally reasonable after 9/11, as they were in the decades before with our enemies of the moment, are totally unconstitutional now, let’s give the NYPD a really, really stern talking-to. a “more effective” civilian monitor “with detailed quarterly reports.” Hah! That will fix everything!

Then again, if we’re going to start concerning ourselves with “historical facts,” then perhaps one that should be considered is that not only has the NYPD never given the slightest shit about these silly settlements and their civilian monitors dredged from the ranks of former prosecutors and city officials, but the historical fact that they’ve never changed a damn thing. But let’s do it again, because surely this time it will work, no matter how many times it has failed before.

*The New York Times article has no link to Judge Haight’s opinion, and I’ve been unable to find one available to link. This is not only a journalistic travesty, but unfair to anyone who wants to go to the original source. If someone has a link to this opinion, it would be greatly appreciated. Personal memo to Matt Apuzzo (don’t read this if you’re not Matt): It’s a mortal journalistic sin to quote from a court opinion without linking to it. Repent, sinner.

**This reference will not bear up well to future readers, who may not be familiar with the New York Times’ publication of a minimum of 25 stories/editorials per day in advance of the presidential election of 2016, about why its favorite son, Donald Trump, will usher in the Apocalypse and Hillary Clinton looks remarkably good in pantsuits.