Pubdate: Tue, 17 Jun 2003
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2003 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Eric Lichtblau

BUSH BANS RACIAL PROFILING, WITH EXCEPTIONS FOR SECURITY

WASHINGTON, June 17 -- President Bush today ordered a ban on racial 
profiling that aides called the most far-reaching in the history of federal 
law enforcement, but the policy carves out clear exemptions for 
investigations involving terrorism and other national security matters.

The new policy, governing the conduct of 70 federal law enforcement 
agencies, forbids agents from using race or ethnicity as factors in routine 
investigations. A narcotics agent, for instance, could not focus on a 
specific neighborhood simply because of its racial composition.

Federal officials said these prohibitions in routine law enforcement 
investigations go beyond the limitations in the Constitution and in federal 
case law. In cases involving national security, however, the policy allows 
the use of race and ethnicity in "narrow" circumstances in order to help 
agents "identify terrorist threats and stop potential catastrophic attacks."

Immigration officials will continue to be able to require that visitors 
from largely Middle Eastern countries register with the government, for 
instance. And if intelligence officials get information indicating that 
terrorists of a certain ethnic group planned to hijack a plane in the next 
week, authorities would be within their rights to subject men of that 
ethnic group boarding planes to "heightened scrutiny."

Officials at the Justice Department, who developed the policy before 
President Bush approved, said this is the first time the federal government 
has ever adopted an across-the-board set of guidelines on racial profiling.

The policy is more than two years in the making. It grows out of a 
commitment that President Bush made in his first State of the Union 
address, in February, 2001, when he denounced racial profiling as "wrong" 
and said "we will end it in America." He ordered a study just weeks after 
taking office, but the became sidetracked by the Sept. 11 attacks, even as 
civil rights groups complained that the government's terrorism 
investigations had made Middle Eastern men the target of racial profiling 
more than ever before.

The report prepared for the President found that only a handful of the 70 
law-enforcement agencies that deal with the public even had written 
policies. Despite the lack of clarity in past policy, however, officials 
found no "systemic problem" in how agents conduct operations.

Arab-American and civil rights groups charged that the loopholes in the 
policy would allow agents to continue to engage in racial profiling under 
the claim of national security.

"This policy acknowledges racial profiling as a national concern, but it 
does nothing to stop it," Laura Murphy, the head of the Washington office 
of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an interview. "It's largely 
a rhetorical statement. The administration is trying to soften its image, 
but it's smoke and mirrors."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom