ACLU urges Senate to support ban on racial profiling | The Raw Story: The American Civil Liberties Union has called on the U.S. Senate to pass legislation that would prohibit local, state and federal law enforcement agencies from racially profiling suspected criminals.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced the End Racial Profiling Act in 2011, but the bill has not yet been taken up by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
“For more than a century black men and women traveling through predominantly white neighborhoods have been questioned for no reason – simply because police officers felt they didn‘t belong there,” the ACLU said in a letter (PDF) sent to senators. “During the past decade, as international terrorism has become a subject of intense concern, those of Arab and South Asian descent have been spied upon, stopped, questioned and subjected to intensified police scrutiny based on racial characteristics rather than any evidence of wrongdoing.”
