With 36,000 officers and a $10 billion budget, the New York Police Department is massive.
So massive, in fact, that former Mayor Michael Bloomberg once called it “the seventh largest
army in the world.”
It’s an incredible stat, especially considering it’s not true at all; the seventh largest
army in the world is Vietnam’s and it’s about ten times larger than the NYPD, which
actually isn’t even the largest police department in the world, being far outnumbered by forces
in South Africa and China.
But facts have never stopped the NYPD before, and they aren’t going to now.
You know what else doesn’t stop the New York Police Department: the confines of the
City of New York, which is why the NYPD has officers stationed in these 14 countries,
all of which, you may notice, are not located in the City of New York.
This is thanks to the International Liaison Program, a phrase I have misspelled every
time I’ve typed it because it turns out “liaison” has a second “i” in it.
No one knows how that second “i” got there, but I can tell you how the International Liaison
Program got there.
As you may be aware, 9/11 happened.
It was, of course, very bad, and then because America is America, we decided to honor that
tragedy by making bizarre and terrible policy choices.
Post-9/11 the NYPD expanded to include a number of counter-terroism efforts, mostly under
the NYPD Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division.
As part of those efforts, then-NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelly and then-Deputy Commissioner
for Intelligence David Cohen started a program that would station NYPD officers abroad, starting
with Tel Aviv, Lyon, and Singapore.
The idea was that these officers, embedded in local police departments, would be able
to learn about how terrorist attacks abroad were both being conducted and being prevented,
and relay that information to the NYPD to improve their own operations.
They’d also be able to gather intelligence about any potential foreign threats to New
York City.
The program has since expanded, and NYPD officers are now stationed in fourteen cities in twelve
foreign countries, although apparently these days, the officers are focused less on terrorism
and more on solving, “other crimes,” a delightfully vague phrase especially when
we’re talking about police officers operating thousands of miles from their jurisdiction.
Now if you’re a New Yorker thinking to yourself, “wait a minute, my tax dollars are being
spent to send police officers to Singapore?
What a waste of money!
I expect the city of New York to spend my money better than that, on things like a staircase
that cost $30 million!”
I have good news for you: the International Liaison Program is actually privately funded,
via the nonprofit New York City Police Foundation, which has allowed it to largely avoid government
scrutiny.
Although now you might be thinking, “Well, okay, I know I was annoyed before when I thought
it was my money, but private funding seems maybe also bad, you know, having privately
funded New York police officers gallivanting around the middle east?
Like…
what are these donors’ interests?
What influence do they have?”
But come on, let’s be reasonable.
The donors are probably fine.
It’s not as if the New York Police Foundation would accept a donation from, say, the government
of the United Arab Emirates.
And it’s certainly not as if that donation would be for $1 million, and that it could
be proved in these documents from The Intercept and was later confirmed by Susan Birnbaum,
president of the Police Foundation.
Because, I mean that would be crazy if all of that was true, right?
As you’ve probably already gleaned from the firestorm that I imagine is happening
in the comments section, the International Liaison Program has both critics and supporters.
Supporters have noted that the program has been useful in handling a number of crimes,
including one notable example where a man implicated in his child’s killing in New
York attempted to flee to Bangkok, and the NYPD officer in Singapore was able to get
to the Bangkok airport in time to intercept him.
And after, for example, the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, liaison officers were able to gather
intelligence about how the bombings were done and relay it back to New York so they could
be prepared for any similar attacks.
Critics, on the other hand, have been more critical.
It turns out that the FBI and CIA hate the International Liaison Program, which isn’t
too surprising given that federal intelligence agencies have a vested interest in New York
City police officers not running around in foreign countries doing stuff where they have
no jurisdiction.
It’s kind of like if you were in charge of security at Disney World, and anytime a
crime happened that you needed to deal with, the night security manager from a Taco Bell
in Canada showed up and attempted to investigate it.
The NYPD, though, seems to have developed this program using the same “The NYPD is
equivalent to the Army and Marines” logic used in the movie Men In Black.
And often local officials aren’t big fans either—after a 2005 bombing in Bali, which
was the work of an Indonesia-based group called Jemaah Islamiyah, NYPD officers showed up
on the scene, prompting “astonishment and irritation” from the Indonesian National
Police.
The officers ultimately had to be told to go home by mom, who in this case was the Regional
Security Officer—the US embassy official whose actual job it is to liaise with foreign
law enforcement.
So, on the one hand, the International Liaison Program is a sort of bizarre pet project of
the NYPD, privately funded, outside of their real jurisdiction, and continually causing
ire from the US agencies and local authorities that are actually supposed to handle this
stuff.
But on the other hand, if NYPD officers are abroad and not in New York, that’s a few
less people who can give me parking tickets when I forget to move my car for street cleaning.
So, you know, pros and cons.
Now look: if you’re interested in New York, you absolutely have to read the greatest book
ever written about New York City, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker.
It’s a biography of Robert Moses, who used unelected positions to exert more influence
on New York City than almost anyone in history, through massive infrastructure projects that
fundamentally shaped the city.
It won a Pulitzer Prize, it’s one of the greatest biographies of all time, but it’s
also incredibly long.
So the perfect way to experience it is through the audiobook version on Audible.
As an Audible Member, you get access to a massive library of audiobooks, exclusive Audible
Originals, podcasts, and so much more.
For me personally, Audible is such a great way to learn things when I’m on the go,
which, if you haven’t noticed, is a lot these days.
New members can try Audible for free for thirty days.
Just click the button on-screen, go to audible.com/HAI, or text HAI to 500-500.
When you do that, you’ll not only get access to this incredible library of audio content,
you’ll also be helping support the channel.