No one should be targeted by law enforcement as "suspicious" based on who they are or what they believe. It's especially wrong for law enforcement to profile communities of color, immigrant communities, or religious minorities for increased surveillance and investigation. But that's just what the FBI's controversial racial and ethnic mapping program seems to encourage. A 2008 FBI operations guide authorized agents to collect information about and map so-called "ethnic-oriented" businesses, behaviors, lifestyle characteristics and cultural traditions in communities with concentrated ethnic populations.
When the ACLU heard about this program, we were very concerned that racial and ethnic mapping might soon lead to unconstitutional and illegal racial and ethnic profiling. Here in Maine we were concerned that the FBI might be targeting our communities of color or immigrant communities in Lewiston and Portland for example. So we filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out.
Almost two years later, the FBI sent us and affiliates across the country hundreds of pages of almost entirely blanked out documents. Among the "secret" and redacted documents appears to be an ordinary United States census map. The hundreds of blank pages, which you can see for yourself here, make a mockery of the Freedom of Information Act. The public has the right to monitor and understand the workings of government, and that includes the FBI. The FBI has a legal and constitutional responsibility to disclose information about its activities.
Today, the ACLU of Maine and our colleagues at the ACLU of Rhode Island filed an administrative appeal to challenge the FBI's refusal to disclose information about its ethnic mapping project. We will work to secure as complete a picture as possible about objectionable FBI surveillance practices in our communities. We will map the FBI, exposing misconduct, abuse of authority, and unconstitutional profiling across the country.
It's a matter of civil rights and civil liberties, but it's also a matter of safety. Law enforcement based on facts and evidence are more effective than a system based on racial stereotypes and mass suspicion.
You can read more at www.aclu.org/mappingthefbi.
