freedetainees.org

WASHINGTON - Civil liberty and immigrant groups are raising red flags against the Justice Department, fearing that ethnic profiling could become institutionalized.
The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on terrorist profiles that could single out racial and ethnic groups.
Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons - like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated - to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents.

The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.      
Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.
Ali Noorami, the executive director of the National Immigrantion Forum, feels that his passport could be considered “to be full of red flags,” since he often visits his parents homeland in Pakistan.
“If you look or sound like an immigrant, the reality is that you are already at higher level of scrutiny,” said Noorani. “Now it’s not just how you look or talk, just leaving the country. If that is now rampant profiling, I don’t know what it is.”
The proposed rules have already prompted a reaction by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“This country should not abandon the presumption of innocence,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU.
“If the FBI is allowed to investigate based on racial or ethnic characteristics, it will make everyone of a certain color or creed a suspect. That stands our traditional presumption of innocent until proven guilty on its head,” she said.
The change, which is expected later this summer, is part of an update of Justice Department policies known as the attorney general guidelines. They are being overhauled amid the FBI’s transition from a traditional crime-fighting agency to one whose top mission is to protect America from terrorist attacks.
“We don’t know what we don’t know. And the object is to cut down on that,” told one FBI official who defended the plans to the Associated Press.
Another official, while also defending the proposed guidelines, raised concerns about criticism during the presidential election year over what he called “the P word” - profiling.
If adopted, the guidelines would be put in place in the final months of a presidential administration that has been dogged by criticism that its counter terror programs trample privacy rights and civil liberties. Just this week, the Senate approved a new FISA bill which allows for warrantless tapping of phone calls emails and other communications by Americans.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged the general policy overhaul was under way in early June, saying the guidelines sought to ensure regulations for FBI terror investigations don’t conflict with the ones governing criminal probes. He would not give any details.
“It’s necessary to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself … into an intelligence gathering organization in addition to just a crime solving organization,” Mukasey told reporters.
The changes would allow FBI agents to ask open-ended questions about individuals’ activities, or investigate them if their jobs and backgrounds match trends that analysts deem suspect.
FBI agents would not be allowed to eavesdrop on phone calls or dig deeply into personal data - such as the content of phone or e-mail records or bank statements - until a full investigation was opened.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the proposed Justice Department policy change “un-American.”
“Any new Justice Department guidelines must preserve the presumption of innocence that is the basis of our entire legal system,” said CAIR National Legislative Director Corey Saylor. “Initiating criminal investigations based on racial or religious profiling is both unconstitutional and un-American.”
He also noted that President Bush had in the past denounced such profiling.
Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that “Nothing contemplated in the draft guidelines affects the use of race guidelines issued by the Attorney General in 2003.”
He also stated that the guidelines governing when to open a national security investigation are part of a “harmonizing” process that will not give the FBI any more authority than it already has.
The AP reported that he did not deny the changes as they were described to AP by other’s familiar with the guidelines.
“Any review and change to the guidelines will reflect our traditional concerns for civil liberties and First Amendment liberties and our traditional investigative emphasis on using the least intrusive means feasible,” said Roehrkasse.
Although, the guidelines do not require congressional approval, the Subcommittee on Constitutional Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is planning a hearing to discuss the guideline changes sometime this month, according to Cong. Barney Frank (D-Mass).
“I think it’s troublesome and I’m glad that they (the members of the subcommittee) are having the hearing,” said Rep. Frank. “I was not aware of this issue. But I have a lot of confidence in them.”
Asked if the proposed changes would indeed lead to racial profiling, the Massachusetts congressman preferred to wait for more information from the results of the subcommittee in which he is not a member.
“Why guess at the answer,” he said.

July 12th, 2008 | Category: Islamophobia |  Print This Post | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL