Opinion

Eric Holder vindicates Ray Kelly

For years, the NYPD has been under fierce attack from critics who claim its mapping program of Muslim communities is an illegal exercise in racial profiling.

But it now it appears Attorney General Eric Holder has concluded that what the NYPD does is a vital anti-terrorism tool.

Holder will soon unveil revisions, five years in the making, of the Justice Department’s rules on prohibited profiling, which according to The New York Times will be expanded to include religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation.

The Times further reports that, though the new rules will eliminate a broad, Bush-era exemption for national security, Holder has apparently concluded that using nationality to map neighborhoods, recruit informants or look for spies and terrorists is an essential investigative tool.

Good for Holder. This is something the NYPD has understood since 9/11. And New York’s Finest have conducted their programs in strict adherence to court-ordered guidelines. They use tacitcs such as mapping because they work. They’re about gaining a broader knowledge of communities in which foreign terrorists may think they can find a logical place to hide.

In short, it’s about collecting the dots, so that no one can ever again accuse law enforcement and intelligence officials of failing to connect those dots.

We’re encouraged the Justice Department appreciates this, even if the activists who have been complaining about it for years do not. And we always believed Ray Kelly would be vindicated on this issue.

We just never thought it would come from Eric Holder.