The FBI is using a racial and ethnic mapping program to collect intelligence on American communities \u2013 and it doesn\u2019t want you to know which ones it\u2019s spying on, or how it\u2019s using census data to do so. The ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan filed a brief in federal court on Friday to challenge the FBI\u2019s secrecy over its profiling practices.<\/p>\n
FBI documents we already secured show that the Bureau is profiling some communities for intelligence collection based on false stereotypes that ascribe certain types of crimes to entire minority communities. Targeted groups include Muslims and Arab-Americans in Michigan, African-Americans in Georgia, Chinese and Russian-Americans in California, and broad swaths of Latino-American communities in multiple states. <\/p>\n
We obtained these FBI documents through the ACLU’s \u201cMapping the FBI\u201d campaign. As part of the campaign, 34 ACLU affiliates filed public records requests in 2010 to uncover how the FBI is collecting and \u201cmapping\u201d information about racial and ethnic groups around the country. Here\u2019s just one troubling example: a 2009 Detroit FBI field office memorandum shows that the Bureau sought to collect information about Middle Eastern and Muslim communities in Michigan \u2013 without any evidence of actual wrongdoing and based on a generalized and entirely unsubstantiated threat assertion.<\/p>\n
The public needs \u2013 and deserves \u2013 to know more about the FBI\u2019s racial and mapping program. For that reason, the ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan brought a federal lawsuit in July 2011 to enforce our request for records about how the program is being used in Michigan. But the Bureau refused to disclose hundreds of documents \u2013 and most problematically, it fought to keep secret its use of information from public sources.<\/p>\n