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Court Backs NYPD Decision Not To Release Documents About Possible Surveillance Of Muslim Men

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A New York appellate panel ruled Thursday that the NYPD was justified in using a Cold War-era federal legal doctrine to deny releasing records about the possible surveillance of two Muslim men.

In a decision handed down Thursday, the panel of judges in Manhattan said heightened law enforcement concerns warranted the Police Department invoking the Glomar doctrine to neither confirm nor deny the existence of certain documents.

An attorney for the men, a Rutgers University student and a Harlem imam, argued that the Glomar doctrine was an expansive privileged and a federal doctrine that shouldn't apply to the state public records law.

A spokesman for the city's Law Department says, "We are all safer because of this ruling."

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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