An FBI program that collects reports about suspicious activity in the United States does not have adequate safeguards and leads to violations of privacy rights and to racial and religious profiling, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday.
In a new report, "ACLU Eye on the FBI," the organization said that its examination of the FBI's eGuardian system, which collects "suspicious activity" records from across the United States, revealed widespread confusion among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies about what exactly should be collected.
The ACLU said it obtained emails between law enforcement authorities in which some voiced "major concerns" about whether First Amendment and privacy rights were being violated in the eGuardian program and a similar scheme run by the Justice Department.