FBI Director Questioned About Agency Practices
in the Bay Area
Civil Rights Organizations Challenge Visiting FBI Director to Answer Questions About
FBI's Practices in the Bay Area
(San Francisco, CA) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC), Asian Law Caucus (ALC), and the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) announced today that they were challenging FBI Director Robert Mueller to provide insight on unanswered questions about the agencies practices in the Bay Area. In a letter submitted yesterday, on the eve of Mueller's visit to the San Francisco, the civil rights organizations asked him to address issues of racial profiling and Islamophobia.
SEE: Robert S. Mueller III, Director, FBI Director (Changing Threats in a Changing World: Staying Ahead of Terrorists, Spies and Hackers)
"The controls over the intelligence gathering practices of the FBI have been nearly gutted in recent years," said ACLU-NC Police Practices Consultant John Crew. "But California's strong constitutional right to privacy and local police policies designed to prevent these sorts of abuses remain intact. If the FBI wants to use our local police resources in their Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), they should be willing to publicly demonstrate that our state right to privacy and local standards are not being sacrificed in the process."
The ACLU-NC, ALC and CAIR-SFBA are specifically seeking answers from Mueller about:
-the relationship between the local and federal law enforcement, through the JTTF
-the control the FBI seeks to exercise over local agencies through the JTTF Memorandum of Understanding
-the civil rights standards by which local law enforcement agents participating in the JTTF abide by
-the impact of and corrective plan for local officers who participated in the Islamophobic trainings hosted by the FBI
FULL LETTER: Questions Regarding FBI JTTF Arrangements with Bay Area Law Enforcement Agencies
"We have sought answers to these questions from local FBI officials for months now," said ALC staff attorney Veena Dubal. "It is our hope that Director Mueller's visit to the Bay Area is an opportunity to raise our collective voices to address the grave concerns we have about the FBI's practices in the Bay Area."
"So long as local law enforcement agencies are delegating control of their officers to federal agencies that have verifiable practices of promoting Islamophobia and violating civil rights we will not be any safer," said CAIR-SFBA Executive Director Zahra Billoo. "Our community members need to be treated like partners, and not suspects."
# # # About The Asian Law Caucus: The Asian Law Caucus was founded in 1972 as the nation's first legal and civil rights Asian American organization. Recognizing that social, economic, political and racial inequalities continue to exist in the United States, ALC is committed to the pursuit of equality and justice for all sectors of our society, with a specific focus directed toward addressing the needs of low-income, immigrant and underserved Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The Asian Law Caucus is a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice. Visit: http://asianlawcaucus.org About The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California: The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) is the largest affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a nationwide, nonpartisan organization with more than 550,000 members dedicated to the defense and promotion of the guarantees of individual liberty secured by state and federal Constitutions and civil rights statutes.
About The Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter:
CAIR-SFBA is a chapter of America's largest Muslim civil rights group, which has over 30 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to promote justice, enhance the understanding of Islam, and empower American Muslims. |
