U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder gestures as he speaks to members of the community during an interfaith service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church where The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached, Monday, Dec. 1, 2014, in Atlanta. AP / David Goldman
Last Updated Dec 8, 2014 1:45 PM EST
Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Justice Department's release of its long-awaited revised racial profiling guidance for federal law enforcement on Monday.
In 2003, the Justice Department issued its first racial profiling guidance under former Attorney General John Ashcroft. That guidance banned profiling based on race and ethnicity, but granted exceptions for national security and border protection. Civil rights groups considered the exceptions a kind of permission to discriminate especially against Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The newly revised guidance will expand the characteristics it protects -- beyond race and ethnicity -- to include bans on profiling on the basis of gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and general identity.
"We can't afford to profile, to do law enforcement on the basis of stereotypes," Holder said Monday at an event in Northern Virginia.
The guidance applies to federal law enforcement officers and also to state and local officers involved in federal law enforcement tasks. But the new guidance does continue to allow certain exceptions for the Department of Homeland Security.
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Holder says he will step down as soon as his replacement is confirmed. He became attorney general in 2009 and was the first African American ever...
The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that there will be exceptions for its work in screening at the borders and in transportation settings. Other exceptions have been carved out for U.S. Border Patrol interdiction activities in the vicinity of the border and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) interdiction activities at ports of entry. Secret Service "protective activities" are also excluded from the new guidelines.
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Eric Holder to release racial profiling guidance - CBS News