Take Action to Stop Proposed FBI Guidelines Allowing Racial Profiling

"...Write to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and let him know today that racial
profiling -- in practice and in policy -- is unacceptable. His address is
Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20530..."

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From: CCR
Take Action to Stop Proposed FBI Guidelines Allowing Racial Profiling
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:42:35 -0400 (EDT)

Recent news reports have revealed that the FBI is planning to release new
Department of Justice guidelines, slated for implementation later in the
year. These proposed guidelines apparently make racial profiling not only an
unwritten practice, but an avowed policy of the FBI. The proposed guidelines
would give the domestic intelligence agency authority to investigate
American citizens and residents without any evidence of criminal acts,
relying instead on a "terrorist profile" that would include race, ethnicity
and "travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity" to spark
an initial "national security investigation."

These proposed guidelines would also allow, according to the reports, for
FBI agents to ask "open-ended questions" about the activities of Muslim or
Arab Americans, or investigate them if their jobs and backgrounds match
other criteria considered to be "suspect." Once this initial investigation
stage was completed, a full investigation could be opened ? allowing for wiretapping of phone calls or deep investigation of personal data ? all
guided merely by a "terrorist profile" that openly relies on race,
ethnicity, religion and community connections.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is deeply concerned about these
proposed guidelines, or any such guidelines that seek to institutionalize
racial profiling. There is a long history of the use of racial profiling not
only by the FBI, but by police departments and security agencies throughout
the United States. From the mass detention of Japanese Americans during
World War II in internment camps, to the creation of COINTELPRO, a domestic
intelligence, surveillance and infiltration program that targeted,
particularly, Black, Latino, Native American and other oppressed communities
and communities of color for spying and disruption, to the mass roundups of
Arab, Muslim and South Asian men following September 11, 2001, the FBI's use
of racial profiling has devastated communities and damaged lives. On a daily
basis, the use of racial profiling by police agencies has taken numerous
lives and wreaked havoc on communities of color.

It is critical that no such policies officially permitting racial
profiling --
a violation of Constitutional rights -- be implemented. Furthermore, full
investigations into the use of racial profiling at the national, state and
local levels should be opened, and those who practice racial profiling, or
encourage or order the use of such practices, should be fir ed and
prosecuted.

These latest reports of proposed guidelines fall directly in line with the
ongoing behavior of the Bush Administration's attempted destruction of the
Constitution and attacks on civil and individual rights and liberties. It is
critical that the next President immediately repudiate the policy and the
practice of racial profiling in his first 100 days in office, and ensure
that there is no tolerance for racial profiling within the new
administration's Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security.

Write to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and let him know today that racial
profiling -- in practice and in policy -- is unacceptable. His address is
Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20530.




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