AP

WASHINGTON MILLIONS of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department (NYPD) programmes that put entire American Muslim neighbourhoods under surveillance.

The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area programme, known as HIDTA.

Some of that money, it’s unclear exactly how much because the programme has little oversight, has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighbourhoods.

It also paid for computers that systems store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.

When NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly was filled in on these efforts, his briefings were prepared on HIDTA computers.

The AP confirmed the use of White House money through secret police documents and interviews with current and former city and federal officials.

The AP also obtained electronic documents with digital signatures indicating they were created and saved on HIDTA computers.

The HIDTA grant programme is overseen by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The disclosure that the White House is at least partially paying for the NYPD’s wholesale surveillance of places where Muslims eat, shop, work and pray complicates efforts by the Obama administration to stay out of the fray over New York’s controversial counterterrorism programmes.

The administration has championed outreach to American Muslims and has said law enforcement should not put entire communities under suspicion.

The Obama administration, however, has pointedly refused to endorse or repudiate the NYPD programmes it helps pay for.