SpyTalk

Present and former FBI officials say there's nothing really new coming in the bureau's domestic counterterrorism program, despite headlines this week about new "ethnic profiling" measures in the works.

"The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups," the Associated Press reported in an exclusive story.

The FBI already takes into account a person's national origins, particularly if he or she is a native Pakistani, Iranian, or other nationality of high interest to U.S. intelligence, when opening preliminary investigations into potential terrorist conspiracies, the officials say.

And as the A.P. itself reported,  among the factors that spur an FBI investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person's race or ethnicity.

But national origin alone is not enough to trigger an investigation, officials say.

For awhile in the South San Francisco-San Jose area, which have large numbers of Iranian exiles, the FBI did run a pilot program sifting through grocery store sales records in search of "ethnic food" purchasing patterns, sources told me last year.

But the FBI denied it was trying to follow a "falafel trail" to potential terrorists.  

However, because the FBI's aggressive new "domain management" program, in which bureau field offices are expected to gather intelligence about immigrant groups of interest in their territory, has left investigators unsure of their limits, the Justice Department is working on guidlines to codify existing practices.

This does not amount to a new "ethnic profiling" program, officials insisted.

The American Civil Liberties Union was not convinced.

"This country should not abandon the presumption of innocence," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office. "If the FBI is allowed to investigate based on racial or ethnic characteristics, it will make everyone of a certain color or creed a suspect. That stands our traditional presumption of innocent until proven guilty on its head," she said.

Harry B. "Skip" Brandon, a former deputy assistant  director of the FBI for counterintelligence, said the headlines about racial profiling may be overblown.

"It does not seem unreasonable for a preliminary look at someone if you combine some of the factors above," Brandon told me. 

While it does not include everyone, and there are certainly exceptions, it seems to me that the majority of those involved in acts of terrorism here or abroad have traveled to "regions of the world known for terrorist activity,"   for training and some have had weapons or military training and the vast majority have been of a certain ethnicity.  

 Of course people always make the argument, what about (Timothy) McVeigh etc.? And there is no question that terrorists are not limited by race or ethnicity. But anyone with any sense at all has to look at the big picture and see what fits a majority.  From a practical standpoint, you can't look at everyone so you have to go where your facts and experience tell you a prospective operative or terrorist have a common background -- and that can include race and ethnicity.