Patrick Lynch is the 51-year-old president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the largest and most influential union of the New York City Police Department. You might recognize his name: Over the weekend, Lynch blamed Bill de Blasio for the Saturday deaths of two Brooklyn cops who were murdered by a lone gunman from Georgia. “That blood on the hands,” he said at a press conference, “starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor.”

The AP's Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman broke an extraordinary story today about the NYPD's unfettered and probably illegal intelligence operation—which employs "rakers" and "mosque crawlers" to troll Arab neighborhoods for information even when no crime is suspected—and its tight integration with the CIA, which has covert operatives deployed within the department. Basically, if you're a Muslim in New York, you either work for the NYPD or are being watched by them.