By Eleanor Boudreau
Memphis, TN – The Tennessee branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI field office in Memphis yesterday. The request was for documents about the FBI's collection and use of race and ethnicity data.
"The FBI's mapping of local communities and businesses based on race and ethnicity, as well as its ability to target communities for investigation based on supposed racial and ethnic behaviors, raises serious civil liberties concerns," said Michael German, Policy Counsel on National Security, Immigration and Privacy for the ACLU and a former FBI agent.
The FBI released this statement:
"The FBI joins the ACLU in opposing invidious discrimination and racial profiling. The AG guidelines and the FBI's DIOG are very clear that the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion, or on race or ethnicity.
The sad truth is, however, that certain terrorist and criminal groups are comprised of persons primarily from a particular ethnic community. As we have said many times in discussing our efforts to transform the FBI into an intelligence agency, we must take that reality into account when trying to determine whether there are threats to the United States that we have not detected.
In order to become an intelligence agency, the FBI cannot be content to wait for people to tell us about potential threats. Part of being proactive is making efforts to "connect dots" to find previously undetected criminal and terrorist threats. Geospatial mapping is not nefarious - but just as putting push pins on a map will allow a local police chief to see clearly where his highest crime areas are, putting data that we lawfully collect into maps sometimes allows us to see connections that we might otherwise not notice."
FBI Media Coordinator for the Memphis office Joel Siskovic says FBI field offices develop an awareness of the domain they are working in--including its racial make-up--through partnerships with local law enforcement and their work as field agents. But Siskovic reiterates that the FBI does not launch investigations based solely on race or ethnicity.
The ACLU Memphis FOIA request is part of a coordinated national effort. Requests were filed with FBI field offices in 30 states and Washington D.C.
The Freedom of Information Act requires that the FBI respond to the ACLU and confirm that it has received the request within 10 days. Release of any documents could take longer.