Constitutional Law

The New FBI Guidelines and the Risk of Racial Profiling

Leading legal scholars and advocates discussed the FBI’s forthcoming guidelines governing criminal, national security and foreign intelligence investigations at a panel discussion sponsored by the American Constitution Society on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 -- a week before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at which FBI Director Robert Mueller will testify.

The proposed guidelines have raised concerns that they will allow government surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin or religion.

In this clip, former FBI Special Agent and ACLU Policy Counsel Mike German discusses the usefulness of racial and religious profiling with The Cato Institute's Senior Fellow Ilya Shapiro.

Panelists included:

• Moderator, Muneer Ahmad, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
• Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel to Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL)
• Mike German, Policy Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union; former FBI Special Agent
• Margaret Huang, Executive Director, Rights Working Group
• Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies, The Cato Institute

Video of the entire event is available here.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on September 12, 2008 (boomark / email).