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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CAIR: Calif. Groups Ask FBI Director to Address Profiling, Islamophobia

(SAN FRANCISCO, CA, 11/17/2011) -- The American Civil Liberties Union ofNorthern California (ACLU-NC), the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), and the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) have announced that they sent a joint letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller in advance of his visit today to San Francisco asking him to address issues of racial profiling and Islamophobia.

SEE: Robert S. Mueller III, Director, FBI Director (Changing Threats in a Changing World: Staying Ahead of Terrorists, Spies and Hackers)

"We have sought answers to these questions from local FBI officials for months now," saidALC staff attorney Veena Dubal. "It is our hope that Director Mueller's visit to the Bay Area is an opportunity to raise our collective voices to address the grave concerns we have about the FBI's practices in the Bay Area."

In the joint letter to Mueller, ACLU-NC, ALC and CAIR-SFBA seek answers
about:

* The relationship between the local and federal law enforcement through the JTTF
* The control the FBI seeks to exercise over local agencies through the JTTF Memorandum of Understanding
* The civil rights standards local law enforcement agents participating in the JTTF abide by
* The impact of and corrective plan for local officers who participated in the Islamophobic trainings hosted by the FBI

FULL LETTER: Questions Regarding FBI JTTF Arrangements with Bay Area
Law Enforcement Agencies

"Our community members need to be treated like partners, not suspects," said CAIR-SFBA Executive Director Zahra Billoo. "Director Mueller must address the community's concerns about the promotion of Islamophobia by FBI trainers and about bureau policies that allow religious and ethnic profiling."

"The controls over the intelligence gathering practices of the FBI have been nearly gutted in recent years," said ACLU-NC Police Practices Consultant John Crew. "But California's strong constitutional right to privacy and local police policies designed to prevent these sorts of abuses remain intact. If the FBI wants to use our local police resources in their Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), they should be willing to publicly demonstrate that our state right to privacy and local standards are not being sacrificed in the process."

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

The Asian Law Caucus was founded in 1972 as the nation's first legal and civil rights Asian American organization. Recognizing that social, economic, political and racial inequalities continue to exist in the United States, ALC is committed to the pursuit of equality and justice for all sectors of our society, with a specific focus directed toward addressing the needs of low-income, immigrant and underserved Asian Americans andPacific Islanders. The Asian Law Caucus is a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) is the largest affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a nationwide, nonpartisan organization with more than 550,000 members dedicated to the defense and promotion of the guarantees of individual liberty secured by state and federal Constitutions and civil rights statutes.

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CONTACT: CAIR-SFBA Executive Director Zahra Billoo, 626.252.0885, E-Mail:zbilloo@cair.com; ALC Staff Attorney Veena Dubal, 510.684.8050, E-Mail:veenad@asianlawcaucus.org; ACLU-NC Police Practices Consultant John Crew,415.793.4146, E-Mail: jcrew@aclunc.org

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