FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress on Wednesday that the bureau’s domestic surveillance guidelines are being used properly, and agents are not using them to target people for investigation based on race.
The FBI director’s defense of the guidelines at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing followed criticism by civil liberties groups that the guidelines unfairly target innocent Muslims.
The guidelines “do not target based on race,” Mueller said during questioning by the committee’s Democratic chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy, about media reports indicating widespread cheating on an FBI test designed to ensure agents understood the guidelines.
Mueller said agents were required to take 16 hours of training on the rules and that despite any cheating on the test he is confident “our work force absolutely understands what can be investigated, how it must be investigated.”
Mueller told Senator Dick Durbin, another Democrat, that the involvement of members of a particular religious group “is not enough” to enable surveillance.
“There has to be something more,” Mueller said.
However, he misspoke on one point, telling Durbin that the guide requires suspicion of wrongdoing before any surveillance can begin.
After the hearing, the FBI said, Mueller sent a note to Durbin saying he misspoke. The FBI must have a proper purpose before conducting surveillance, but suspicion of wrongdoing is not required, he said.
In an interview on Tuesday, Farhana Khera, executive director of the nonprofit group Muslim Advocates, said the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide is “quite an invasive data collection system.”
“It’s based on generalized suspicion and fear on the part of law enforcement, not on individualized evidence of criminal activity,” Khera said.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed requests under the US Freedom of Information Act asking FBI field offices in 29 states and Washington to turn over records related to the bureau’s collection of data on race and ethnicity.
The ACLU said the FBI’s operations guide gives agents the authority to create maps of ethnic-oriented businesses, behaviors, lifestyle characteristics and cultural traditions in communities with concentrated ethnic populations.
The FBI refuses to make public portions of the guide that deal with sending agents or informants into houses of worship and political gatherings.
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