FBI Racial Mapping Data Sought

The ACLU of Connecticut wants to see what racial and ethnic data the FBI has collected in the state.

Since 2008, an FBI manual has claimed authority to collect information about so-called "ethnic-oriented" businesses, "behaviors", "lifestyle characteristics" and cultural traditions in communities with concentrated ethnic populations, to assist its "domain awareness" and "intelligence analysis" activities.

Little information is available to the public about how the FBI has carried out its asserted authority. The ACLU-CT has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the Connecticut Field Office of the FBI to learn what has been collected--part of a coordinated effort with ACLU affiliates nationwide to uncover these records.

"The FBI's claimed authority to track and map behaviors and lifestyle characteristics of racial and ethnic communities has alarming implications for civil rights and civil liberties," says Andrew Schneider, Executive Director of the ACLU-CT. "The people of Connecticut have a fundamental right to know what information the government is collecting about them, how that information is gathered, and how it is being used."

The FBI's claimed authority is described in its 2008 Domestic Intelligence and Operations Guide. The FBI released the guide in heavily redacted form in September 2009; a less-censored version was not made public until January of this year, in response to a lawsuit filed by Muslim Advocates.