Advocates for Muslim and Arab-American Communities Express Apprehensions Re: Content and Application of Terrorist Profiling Guidelines

On the Foreign Policy Association's Religion and Politics Blog, Karen Esposito has an interesting post on the revision of DOJ guidelines on terrorist profiling and the process's potential implications for Muslim-Americans. She writes:

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) issued a statement last Thursday about the Department of Justice’s aim to update the Attorney General Guidelines. MPAC reported that besides for its own organization, other groups, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the Arab American Institute (AAI), are concerned by developments in the drafting of the new DoJ guidelines, which hope to transform the FBI into an intelligence gathering center for the U.S. in the War on Terror. According to the article, “Terror Profiling without Evidence Considered in US,” in USA Today, “The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims.” MPAC quoted the President of AAI, who is worried that millions of Americans would be the targets of “arbitary and subjective ethnic and religious profiling.” This might lead, therefore, to further alienation of certain religious communities, particularly Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans.

Esposito's post provides links to relevant commentary and research on this set of issues.

JFB