WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- Looking to avoid the issue of racial-profiling while trying to prevent terror attacks, two U.S. senators have introduced legislation to make the FBI surveillance of suspects easier.
Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; sponsored the measure placed before the Senate Wednesday that would eliminate the current requirement that requires a link to a foreign government to be shown before initiating surveillance of a terrorism suspect.
"It's simply not reasonable to expect that the kind of people that associate with al Qaida, which is not a conventional terrorist-cell-type organization, are going to enable us to quickly prove that they either belong to al Qaida or a foreign power," Kyl told the Washington Times.
"That's not the way they work. I have no doubt that in the near future, groups like al Qaida will try to perpetrate terrorist acts against the United States. We have to do everything we can within our Constitution to prevent that. This is a big step in that direction."
With most of the known members of al Qaida being of Middle Eastern descent, there have been concerns that such an investigation would be racial profiling. To avoid the appearance of marking one ethnic group for such investigations, some FBI sources have told senators they fear being accused of breaching civil rights by profiling.
"We're going to have to grapple with that issue," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. She added that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence planned to look into the profiling issue to see if it had affected investigations since Sept. 11.
U.S. officials said that 19 men -- all with Middle Eastern names -- hijacked U.S. jetliners last September and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Another hijacked craft crashed in western Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 people died in the attacks.
"Profiling by country is not racial profiling," Schumer told the Washington Times. "Saying that somebody from Saudi Arabia might have a different chance of committing terrorism than somebody from Cambodia or somebody from Italy is a reasonable thing to say.
"Racial profiling of American citizens is abhorrent, whether they be African American, Asian America or Muslim America. I think you can do this much better by country of origin but with the strong caveat of non-citizen only, non-green card (holder) only. That's a much more comfortable way to be with this."
Kyl said the measure he and Schumer presented would not remove basic protections against illegal police actions.
"You still have to have probable cause that a particular individual I acting or about to act in a terrorist way," he said. "And you've got to know something more about the individual than just his country of origin or his particular race."
