Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder is preparing an order to prohibit racial and religious profiling by federal law enforcement agencies, including investigators working on national security cases, news reports say.
The impending ban, which will also cover sexual orientation, was first reported by the
Los Angeles Times on Saturday, and confirmed on Tuesday by
Fox News. It's expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Holder was poised to unveil the new policy several months ago, but the White House intervened to demand a review of the proposal by the Department of Homeland Security, the Times reported.
Some law enforcement officials lobbied for an exemption from the profiling ban in national security cases, but were rejected.
"Advocates of the new policy said they were surprised because the debate over the national security exemption had blocked movement for months," the Times reported.
Under the new rules, federal agents who want to conduct undercover surveillance of a mosque, for example, would have to have information beforehand about specific criminal activity — but they may still be permitted to pre-emptively recruit informants from religious groups, the Times reported.
Harvard law professor and Newsmax contributor Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax TV on Tuesday that he supported Holder's plan.
Dershowitz said that while it's fair to consider religion or ethnicity among other factors in a criminal investigation, "pure racial profiling is immoral, illegal and stupid."
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