Mapping the FBI: Documents Show Widespread Racial and Religious Profiling by Government

[rug]

Oct 21st, 2011
Project at 5:12pm

Yesterday, the ACLU unveiled a new initiative — Mapping the FBI — that exposes the ways in which vastly expanded FBI investigative authority has resulted in the unconstitutional investigation of American communities and individuals based on who they are and what they believe.

Through Freedom of Information Act requests in 31 states and Washington, D.C. (enforced by lawsuits in Michigan, New Jersey and California), ACLU and its affiliates uncovered and analyzed thousands of FBI documents. These documents reveal that the FBI is gathering intelligence on and mapping communities based on the association of a certain race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion with the propensity to commit various crimes.

In response, the FBI issued a statement claiming that its activities are "intended to address specific threats, not particular communities" and to "better understand the communities that are potential victims of the threats." But, the FBI's own documents show that this simply isn't true.

Nothing in the 2009 Detroit FBI memorandum that we published yesterday suggests that the FBI opened a data collection and intelligence gathering initiative directed towards Muslims and Middle Eastern communities in Michigan to protect themfrom threats. Instead, the memorandum squarely associates these communities with the "international terrorist" threat itself. It observes that "many" terrorist organizations "originate in the Middle-East and Southeast Asia" and then claims—without a single piece of evidence to back it up —that the "large Middle-Eastern and Muslim population" in Michigan makes the state "prime territory for attempted radicalization and recruitment by these terrorist groups."

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-racial-justice/mapping-fbi-documents-show-widespread-racial-and-religious