Muslim Advocates seeks FBI guidelines on racial profiling of Muslim Americans

June 17, 2009--Muslim Advocates recently filed a final appeal under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the Department of Justice for Federal Bureau of Investigation documents which establish guidelines for systematic racial profiling against American Muslims.

On May 15, Muslim Advocates filed a final administrative appeal for the public release of the FBI's surveillance guidelines, called Domestic Investigative Operational Guidelines (DIOGs). These guidelines, which implement the Attorney General's directives, provide FBI agents the rules by which they can cultivate informants, initiate investigations, and track and spy on Americans, particularly online or at mosques and other houses of worship.

The recent revelations of mosque infiltration and the use of agent provocateurs in communities across the country from New York to California raise grave concerns about the use of expansive law enforcement power granted to the FBI.

Read Muslim Advocates' full FOIA appeal to the Department of Justice

According to Muslim Advocates appeal, the FBI hosted two briefings in November 2008 during which representatives from privacy, civil liberties and community organizations, including Muslim Advocates, were allowed to review unredacted versions of the draft guidelines. Since then, the FBI has repeatedly denied requests by Muslim Advocates for an unredacted copy of the final guidelines.

The appeal states, "there is no legal basis for the FBI's failure to make the final and unredacted DIOGs available." Further, it states, "the public has substantial interest in access to the complete and unredacted final version of the DIOGs. The draft DIOGs reviewed on November 19, 2008, contained significant unprecedented measures to expand the FBI's investigative authorities, which raise considerable privacy implications as well as implicit support for racial and religious profiling."

Read more about cases of racial profiling by federal agents in Muslim Advocates' report Unreasonable Intrusions: Investigating the Politics, Faith & Finances of Americans Returning Home.