Many FBI Agents Find Racial Profiling Useless, But Those Up Top Feel It's Just A Failure To Get Everyone On Board

from the Assistant-Regional-Director-of-First/Fourth-Amendment-Violations dept

Mon, Mar 30th 2015 2:39pm — Tim Cushing

The recently-released 9/11 Commission's review of FBI tactics in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks seems to suggest the agency should perform even more racial profiling than it already does. As Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake points out, the language in the report places a lot of emphasis on "domain awareness" and pre-crime policing.

Documents the American Civil Liberties Union have been able to obtain show [PDF] that “FBI analysts make judgments based on crude stereotypes about the types of crimes different racial and ethnic groups commit, which they then use to justify collecting demographic data to map where people with that racial or ethnic makeup live.” The FBI uses “domain analysis” to target American Muslims and Islamic institutions.

The similarities between this suggested course of action and the NYPD's infamous "Demographics Unit" (led by a former CIA official) are notable. Both involve questionable tactics like declaring entire mosques "terrorist organizations" simply because attendees followed the same religion as the 9/11 attackers. Notably, the FBI found the NYPD's tactics so thoroughly violated the rights of those being surveilled that it refused to access any of the intelligence gathered by the Demographics Unit. That decision ultimately cost the FBI nothing in terms of usable intel. Despite years of rights violations and round-the-clock surveillance, the NYPD's special unit was never instrumental in preventing attacks or producing significant arrests.

Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel notes that the FBI's analysis of the 9/11 Commission's reports indicates a significant percentage of FBI agents found racial profiling and pre-crime "investigations" to be a waste of time.

According to one anecdote, 20% of analysts (not even Field Agents!) understand the point of this. And even in offices where they do understand, the Field Agents won’t do their part by going and filling in the blanks analysts identify.

The "blanks" are contained in CSCCs (Central Strategic Coordinating Components), linked to field offices' "domain awareness" programs. But one-fifth of agents refused to comply with this directive -- not because 20% of FBI agents are necessarily against racial profiling (documents obtained by the ACLU show otherwise) -- but because the tactic just doesn't work.

Call me crazy. But maybe the people responding to actual crimes believe they learn enough in that process — and are plenty busy enough trying to catch criminals — that they don’t see the point of racially profiling people like NYPD does? Maybe they believe the ongoing threats are where the past ones have been, and there’s no need to spend their time investigating where there aren’t crimes in case there ever are in the future?

Doing investigative work like investigators, rather than like surveillance dragnets? That's probably crazy enough to work. Not that the FBI has any desire to dial back its requests for encryption backdoors and unfettered access to electronic communications, but those actually out in the field seem to know what works and what doesn't. And a constant APB for anyone fitting the "Muslim/Male" description isn't exactly helpful.

Of course, those at the top -- the ones finding this to be a credible way to fight terrorism -- see this 20% as outliers who have failed to "get on the bus." And in a mixture of the worst parts of bureaucracy and corporate culture, they've responded with "do more of what isn't productive, only faster and harder."

Yet rather than analyzing whether this concept serves any purpose whatsoever, it instead says, “it’s corporate policy, no one is doing it well, so it needs to improve.”

There's a lesson here, but those writing the review aren't comprehending it. (Wheeler notes that many of those interviewed for the report aren't actually FBI agents, but rather representatives of other intelligence agencies, like the CIA.) To catch terrorists, you need smarter investigative work, not work that involves blanket surveillance and the rote filling in of blanks. The NYPD should know this, considering its failure to catch plots later uncovered by the FBI, but it doesn't. Despite the disbandment of the "Demographics Unit," it still clings to the belief that mass surveillance beats real police work any day of the week. The FBI has figured this out -- or at least a percentage of its agents have -- but that's not going to be enough to persuade those calling for more of everything to dial back their efforts a bit.

The FBI can be smart, but it's apparently hampered by upper management with an obvious fondness for bad ideas that simultaneously expand the agency's power. If it is how it looks, the real aim of the agency heads is more power, not fewer terrorist attacks.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: fbi, nypd, racial profiling, terrorism

23 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 30 Mar 2015 @ 3:47pm

"The FBI can be smart, but it's apparently hampered by upper management with an obvious fondness for bad ideas that simultaneously expand the agency's power. If it is how it looks, the real aim of the agency heads is more power, not fewer terrorist attacks."

Bureaucrats never admit they were wrong about anything. Bad results are always blamed on poor execution --not unsound policy-- so they can always pin the blame on some underling. That's the way government agencies work, the guys at the top are untouchable, while those at the bottom are the ones who get punished for following bad orders -- or worse yet, daring to complain about bad orders.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Mar 2015 @ 4:37pm

Mass survailence pretty worthless
It would be relatively easy to set up completely innocuous text as code worked into a conversation for contextual sense. Since if they think "So how is grandpa doing in the hospital." or "Any plans for the weekend?" is code without an internal tip off they must be incredibly paranoid and going nuts on wild gooses chase.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sheogorath (profile), 30 Mar 2015 @ 5:23pm

Many FBI Agents Find Racial Profiling Useless, But Those Up Top Feel It's Just A Failure To Get Everyone On Board
That's because they don't remember when black Americans were getting lynched for every violent crime that occurred, but there was no parallel reduction in the rates of violent offences. Short memory the US Government has, young padawan.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
lew, 30 Mar 2015 @ 5:46pm

Muslims did not do 9-11, dammit
9/11 was a false flag operation.

I bet my relatives an ounce of gold that, with them as the sole judge, if they spend 10 hours watching the various 9-11 truth videos and looking at the web sites, evaluating the evidence and the people presenting the evidence, they will agree.

If you do not understand that 9/11 was a false flag operation done by our own government, a) You don't understand the most important thing in our national life, and b) you haven't studied the evidence.

I have never had to pay off. You will notice that there are no intelligent people arguing the gov's case on the net any longer.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Mar 2015 @ 7:54pm

see this 20% as outliers who have failed to "get on the bus."
They just don't want to sit at the back of the bus.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 30 Mar 2015 @ 8:51pm

Moot point
Here's the thing though: Ultimately, it doesn't matter.

Whether it was a real attack or a staged one, what mattered was what came after it, both in the government, and among the public. That was were the real damage to the country took place after all, so focusing on 'Was the attack a real one, or was it staged?' is missing the forest for the trees.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 Mar 2015 @ 1:10am

Ah, this old comedy - "YOU'RE JUST NOT BELIEVING ENOUGH!!!!"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 Mar 2015 @ 1:40am

It should work thou. Obviously the islamic communities are more likely to be talking with IS than a pensioner club.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 Mar 2015 @ 4:41am

Re: Muslims did not do 9-11, dammit - oh yes they did!
If you do not understand that 9/11 was a false flag operation done by our own government, a) You don't understand the most important thing in our national life, and b) you haven't studied the evidence.

I'll bet you believe that the moon landings were faked too!

Look - if the government had staged it it would at least have managed to throw the blame directly on Iraq/Saddam instead of blaming Saudis who are supposed to be one of our allies (in spite of their human rights record).
It also would have avoided the embarassment of using Bin Laden who was initially supported (against the Soviets) by an administration that included George HW Bush as vice president.

It is an inconvenient truth for those of us on the left that the "minorities" that we believe are oppressed by western governments may not themselves live up to our own moral standards and that their religion could actually encourage them to behave worse than their "oppressors".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 Mar 2015 @ 5:06am

Islam is not a race
Whilst racial profiling is abhorrent it is important to note the Islam is not a race - it is an ideology. The article seems to have confused the two different things - as does the FBI itself which is one of the problems.

Many people of "Muslim" appearance may in fact be Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Agnostics or Atheists.

Conversely many people of western appearance and heritage could be Muslims.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard (profile), 31 Mar 2015 @ 5:18am

Re: Moot point
Whether it was a real attack or a staged one, what mattered was what came after it, both in the government, and among the public.

Actually what came after it proves that it was not staged. The objective of terror organisations is to undermine our freedonm, in short to make us behave as badly as they do, thus undermining our moral authority. In this they succeeded because of the moral weakness of out politicians.

I don't believe that our politicians actually want to create a police state (although that cannot be said of some of the commercial organisations that sell them the equipment). However they are slaves to the "something must be done - this is something" fallacy and that is the real problem.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 31 Mar 2015 @ 5:34am

So you're saying . . .
Racial Profiling is like Agile software development.

(ducks, hides under desk)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
jim, 31 Mar 2015 @ 6:12am

Re:
Or how about, when the Irish were getting lynched for the imagined crimes, or the first slaves in america were what color? Get off the racist crap and just investigate damnit. Good police work by the few raises the bar by getting the bad guy off the street.
A better response would have been, to not mention just one race, even the Chinese recruit railroad workers were hung and the other races who came as immigrants were treated the same way until they formed their own communities and settled in. Shucks even cowboy, ones in white hats were hung because the were the wrong person in the neighborhood. Injustice is injustice. It don't matter the race damnit.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Padpaw (profile), 31 Mar 2015 @ 9:12am

If we are supporting the "they may turn out to be a criminal so lets harass and shoot them now" option. Lets go for bold territory and label all of those alphabet government organizations possible terrorists and traitors on the grounds that since many of them have committed crimes and broken their oaths, all of them probably will. Why not throw the police in there as well, if many of them shoot without warning unarmed and unresisting people its only safe to play the percentages and assume all of them are criminal cops.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Padpaw (profile), 31 Mar 2015 @ 9:15am

Re: Re: Muslims did not do 9-11, dammit - oh yes they did!
didn't the government recently come out saying they did fake the moon landings in the 60's to provide a morale boost to the American people so that they believed they beat the Russians.

They eventually did land on the moon, just not when they first said they did
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sheogorath (profile), 31 Mar 2015 @ 11:02am

Re: Re:
Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise that referencing that everyone is guaranteed to know about was so wrong. No wonder you aren't signed in.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sheogorath (profile), 31 Mar 2015 @ 9:06pm

Re: Re: Re:
Above should read 'referencing something'.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard (profile), 1 Apr 2015 @ 3:49am

Re: Re: Re: Muslims did not do 9-11, dammit - oh yes they did!
I was around at the time - the spacecraft were tracked and observed by scientists from multiple nationalities - such a conspiracy would have been completely impractical.

No one ever suggested such a thing until after Capricorn 1 came out.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
John Fenderson (profile), 1 Apr 2015 @ 8:58am

Re: Re: Re: Muslims did not do 9-11, dammit - oh yes they did!
Umm, not that I can find. Do you have a citation?

NASA did admit that several of the photos that they released to major magazines in the day had been doctored to make them prettier, but that's about as close as I can get to any admission of "faking".
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 1 Apr 2015 @ 4:32pm

Re: Muslims did not do 9-11, dammit
Just curious - have you spent at least 10 hours reviewing official documentation of the attacks as well?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 1 Apr 2015 @ 4:34pm

Re:
It should work thou.

And yet... it doesn't.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Reality bites, 7 Apr 2015 @ 5:54am

Nothing dumber than a boss who has never done the job.
Shows clearly with everything they do. Now just a 100% inept useless rogue agency.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
fairyailsa, 21 Mar 2016 @ 4:55am

Islamic Son, Islamic Videos
Islamic Sun offers you Islamic Videos, Religious Wallpapers, Islamic Books, Relagious Information, Mojizat Pictures, Naats, Bayans
and Other Islamic Stuff.
[ link to this | view in thread ]