In the wake of years of criticism over singling out Muslims in counterterrorism investigations, the US is expanding its definition of racial profiling so that federal agents would not consider religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation in their probe.
A report in the New York Times said the Justice Department has been reviewing the rules for several years but has not publicly signalled how it would change them. However, Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed his plans in a meeting with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio yesterday.
The move would address a decade of criticism from civil rights groups who say federal authorities particularly single out Muslims in counterterrorism investigations and Latinos for immigration investigations.
The new mayor had run an election campaign in which he had criticised police's stop-and-frisk tactic, which "overwhelmingly targets minorities" and which a federal judge declared unconstitutional. The mayor and attorney general did not discuss when the rule change would be announced, it said.
A senior Democratic congressional aide, however, said the Obama administration had indicated that an announcement was "imminent".
According to the report, the Justice Department did not confirm that new rules would be put in place, but released a short statement saying that the mayor and the attorney general discussed "preventing crime while protecting civil rights and civil liberties".
Holder has in the past spoken out forcefully against profiling. "Racial profiling is wrong," he said in a 2010 speech.
"It can leave a lasting scar on communities and individuals. And it is, quite simply, bad policing - whatever city, whatever state."
The George Bush administration had banned profiling in 2003, but with two caveats that it did not apply to national security cases, and it covered only race, not religion, ancestry or other factors.
President Bush said in 2001 that racial profiling was wrong and promised to end it in America but the stand was before the 9/11 terrorist attacks following which federal agents arrested and detained dozens of innocent Muslim men.
"Putting an end to this practice not only comports with the Constitution, it would put real teeth to the FBI's claims that it wants better relationships with religious minorities," said Hina Shamsi, a national security lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.
The rules cover federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. They do not cover local or state police departments.
Religious profiling led Muslim groups to sue the New York Police Department over surveillance programmes that mapped Muslim neighbourhoods, photographed their businesses and built files on where they eat, shop and pray.
