ACLU Sues DOJ & DHS Officials

ACLU of Illinois Sues Justice Department and Homeland Security Officials over Failure to Release Racial Profiling Data August 13,2003

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois asked a federal court to order the release of data that will help the public determine whether federal law enforcement agencies are engaged in racial profiling. On June 9,1999 the president then-President Bill Clinton, ordered “Fairness in Law Enforcement: Data Collection” which mandates collection of data regarding contacts between Law enforcement officials and members of the public.

The request specified that it include but was not limitied to

1. all ducuments relating or referring to official policies;
2. all documents relating or referring to training materials;
3. all forms provided to agents on which they are to gather data;
4. all compilations of data; and
5. all analyses of data.

The lawsuit was filed in federal district court against the Justice Department and the new Department of Homeland Security. It seeks enforcement of the federal Freedom of Information Act, which compels government officials to disclose certain records to the public.

This lawsuit questions whether the promises made by this act were in fact a real commitment or just a way to keep everyone “happy” for the time being.

The lawsuit specifically seeks the data from the Justice Department about the operations of the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and from the newly created Department of Homeland Security about the operations of the Customs Service.

This collection of data is considered to be a vital part in addressing the problem we have with racial profiling.

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By mandating this, supervisory personnel can efficiently ascertain if individual officers are targeting particular ethinic minority groups.

The author gave a web site on more information on the ACLU’S work to end racial profiling. You would go to

• http://www.aclu.org/RacialEquality/RacialEqualitylist.cfm?c=133

The ACLU complaint is online and can be found at

• http://www.aclu-il.org/mailings/FOIA%20Complaint.pdf

The Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich recently signed legislation mandating that Illinois law officials collect the data I have mentioned thus far. I think this is a great step for that state. If the President thinks that such data will assist in helping racial profiling then whatever everyone can do to assist in obtaining such data is great.

I personally see some flaws in observing police officer and who they stop and search. How is a cop to know what color a driver of a car is before he stops them if it is dark outside? Even sometimes during the day they can’t always tell if they driver is a white or hispanic or asian, whatever. So if one cop always seems to stop blacks does that mean he is prejustice? Can all this information really tell us if one cop is purposely stopping one group of people or just doing his job correctly? These are the questions that came to my mind when I read over this acticle and looked over the complaint.

I can see that this is a great step but is it full proof? You wanted our own recommendations and I would have to say that if after they collected all this data and they find that some officers are targeting.