Adam Serwer

In early 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder promised members of Congress that the Justice Department was "actively looking at" the New York Police Department's spying on American Muslims. Now, more than a year later, advocates—and two top Democrats—are still wondering what happened.

"I have patiently waited for the Department of Justice to complete its review of the situation, but it has been nearly two years since the story broke and over a year since the Department of Justice committed to doing a review of NYPD's actions," Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif), who was detained in an internment camp during World War II, told Mother Jones. Honda said that the Justice Department should "conduct a full investigation, not a simple review, of the NYPD's numerous constitutionally questionable actions immediately."

Muslim advocacy groups have regular interagency meetings with the federal government but have also received no official response on the matter. Nor has Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), who says he "first requested that the department conduct an investigation in response to news reports in September of 2011." Since then, Holt adds, "I have received no substantive updates from the Justice Department, despite many follow-up inquiries. To my knowledge, no investigation has been conducted."

Holder repeatedly promised lawmakers that the Justice Department was considering investigating the spying, telling Honda in February 2012 that the department was "reviewing" letters from members of Congress about the NYPD's actions "to determine what action, if any, we should take." The next month, the attorney general went even further: "Just what I've read in the newspapers is disturbing," Holder told a Senate appropriations subcommittee on March 8, 2012. "There are various components within the Justice Department that are actively looking at these matters."

The whole controversy began in August 2011, when the Associated Press published the first of a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of stories on an NYPD unit, established in 2002, that was advised by an official from the Central Intelligence Agency and engaged in broad surveillance and mapping of Muslim communities in New York and the surrounding region. (The CIA inspector general investigated the Agency's involvement in the NYPD program concluding that its involvement was legal.) The unit's operations were funded in part by federal grant money meant to help combat drug trafficking. Although an NYPD official admitted under oath that the unit's work never led to a single investigation, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has defended the NYPD's surveillance of Muslim communities as necessary "to keep this country safe." A report by the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund found that the surveillance program had a "devastating effect" on Muslim communities in the New York area, causing Muslims to censor their speech, become suspicious of those around them, and to fear that their political or academic choices could draw attention from government authorities. Last June, the Muslim civil rights group Muslim Advocates filed a lawsuit against the NYPD alleging that the department's surveillance program violated the constitutional rights of New Jersey Muslims.

Shortly after they broke, the Associated Press stories had caused enough of a stir that members of Congress were getting involved. Holt says he first asked the Justice Department to investigate the NYPD in September 2011. Thirty-four Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Holder in December 2011 demanding a Justice Department investigation of the NYPD. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich sent a letter to Honda on February 1, 2012, assuring him that they were "reviewing your letter, the news reports that you reference, and other information regarding the allegation that law enforcement agencies may have violated the Constitution or federal law by singling out Muslims or others for police contact—stops and investigations—based upon their race, ethnicity or national origin." Several weeks later, Holder publicly told members of both the House and Senate that the Justice Department was "reviewing" whether or not there needed to be an investigation.

Members of Congress have pressed Holder on the matter since—including at a private meeting of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus in September 2012. At that event, both Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Honda both asked Holder in person about the review. Holder told them it was ongoing. Asked by Mother Jones, a DOJ spokeswoman suggested that the department still hasn't made up its mind, adding that "we cannot comment on matters under review."

The question of whether or not to investigate the NYPD's surveillance activities pits two important Obama administration priorities against each other—its aggressive, often controversial efforts to prevent another terrorist attack on the United States, which have been frequently criticized by civil libertarians, and its reinvigoration of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Since taking office, the special litigation section of the civil rights division has investigated more local police departments for unconstitutional policing than ever before, but never on behalf of American Muslims profiled by law enforcement.

Although Holder referred to the reports of the NYPD's actions as "disturbing," that's not the view of everyone in the Obama administration. CIA Director John Brennan, formerly a top White House counterterrorism adviser, praised the NYPD's surveillance program in April 2012. "I have full confidence that the NYPD is doing things consistent with the law, and it's something that again has been responsible for keeping this city safe over the past decade," Brennan said.

That was at odds with Holder's initial take. "In performing these law enforcement functions, we have to take into account, you know, cost-benefit here," Holder told the House appropriations committee in February 2012. "You do not want to alienate a community, a group of people, so that especially impressionable young people think that their government is against them. And then, you know, the siren song that they hear from people who they can access on the internet becomes something that becomes more persuasive to them."

This piece previously stated that the CIA Inspector General was investigating the Agency's involvement with the NYPD, that investigation has been concluded.

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King Joffrey and Lady Margaery spend some quality time together. Courtesy of HBO

This review contains minor spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 3.

Just when you think you've finally got the heroes and villains in HBO's epic fantasy series Game of Thrones all figured out, Season 3 again draws your sympathy towards Westeros' devils.

That reversal is built into the source material for Thrones, George R.R. Martin's unfinished seven-book series, A Song of Ice And Fire. The dwarf Lannister son Tyrion's brave and near-fatal defense of King's Landing is rewarded with isolation. In the North, Robb Stark wins every battle, yet seems no closer to winning his war. Theon Greyjoy gets the Zero Dark Thirty treatment from his captors—who seem to be allied with his one-time friend Stark.

Thrones wants you to know that ruthlessness, cunning, and even competence are no greater a shield against a cruel fate in Westeros than Ned Stark's honesty and honor proved to be—and that the show's villains aren't quite so villainous. Acts of heroism from those who once seemed heartless, and moments of unconscionable suffering for those you might have thought deserved it, compel the viewer to reconsider who the "good guys" really are.

But Thrones' creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have their own set of audience expectations to challenge—particularly their treatment of women. (Read our interview with them here.) Thrones has been widely and justifiably mocked for its use of "sexposition," a.k.a. nudity, to introduce important plot points, and Martin's source material has complex but deeply flawed gender politics. Perhaps that's why in Season 3, it's the women of Westeros—and their attempts to manipulate a barbarous, patriarchal society rife with sexual violence—who take center stage. From the ladies of House Tyrell quietly making their bid for Iron Throne, to former prostitutes pulling the strings of power behind the scenes, to Brienne (the sworn sword of Catelyn Stark) humbling feared warrior Jamie Lannister, Thrones writers enhance the roles for the women of Westeros—in some cases beyond the bounds of Martin's books—and it's mostly for the better.

Ned Stark pulled the viewer through Season 1, at least until he lost his head. Tyrion's wielding of the power behind the Iron Throne occupied Season 2, and even in Season 3 the best one-liners remains his. (When King's eunuch spymaster Varys recounts the events that lead to his castration, he tells Tyrion that defeating Stannis Baratheon was a kind of "symbolic revenge." Tyrion responds, "I feel the need for actual revenge.")

Still, it is arguably the ruthless Queen Cersei Lannister who emerges as the principal character in the first few episodes of Season 3. Until now of course, she's been one of the show's principal villains—telling her brother and lover Jamie Lannister to push Bran Stark out of a window, imprisoning Ned Stark, and helping arrange the death of her husband, King Robert Baratheon.

But hey, look what Cersei has to deal with. Her father, Tywin Lannister, refuses to recognize her as his heir. Her son Joffrey is an illegitimate product of incest between her and her brother as well as a total sociopath. House Tyrell, whose army saved King's Landing from being sacked by Stannis Baratheon while Joffrey was cowering in his keep, have moved into court and are now making a subtle play for the Seven Kingdoms by marrying Margaery Tyrell to Joffrey. When Cersei points out to Joffrey that Margaery was previously wedded to one of his deceased rivals, he cruelly brushes her off by arguing Margaery was only doing what she was told. Then he twists the knife. "That’s what intelligent women do," Joffrey says. "What they're told."

For Cersei, who believes that the only thing keeping her from power is that she is a woman, nothing could be more cruel than hearing this from the son whose enemies she has crushed one by one. Not only because he's wrong, but also because it shows he possesses all of her cruelty but none of her cleverness. Cersei is now being surrounded by Tyrell women who are just as cunning and ruthless as she is, and by Lannister men who seem oblivious to the threat. When Joffrey asks Margaery why she married a "traitor," she bats her eyes and tells him that the "subtleties of politics are lost on me," even as she quietly manipulates the peasants of King's Landing—who last season almost tore Joffrey limb from limb during a riot—into seeing her as their savior. 

Later, as Joffrey takes Margaery's hand and guides her around the royal crypt, gleefully recounting the brutal deaths of his kingly predecessors (this is a date, apparently), Margaery's grandmother Olenna senses Cersei's blooming jealousy. "We mothers do what we can to keep our sons from the grave, they do seem to yearn for it. We shower them with good sense and yet it slides right off like rain off a wing," Olenna says to Cersei. "And yet the world belongs to them," Cersei points out. "A ridiculous arrangement in my mind," Olenna replies.

Olenna's right—from the icy wall in the North to across the Narrow Sea, where Danaerys Targaryen raises her dragons and seeks an army to retake Westeros, there's no shortage of cruelty, stupidity, or self-regard in the men seeking power. It's why, as the season hurtles toward its bloody conclusion, they'll have no idea what's coming. Besides Winter, of course.

Correction: This piece previously stated that Cersei ordered the deaths of King Robert's children sired out of wedlock. That is how it takes place in the novel. In the show, it is Joffrey who gives the order.

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