There are times when the U.S. government allows politics to interfere with policy and ends up shooting itself in the foot. Guidelines set to take effect Dec. 1 for the FBI may be a perfect example.

Issued by Attorney General Michael Mukasey's Department of Justice, the new guidelines for FBI agents will be a dangerous step back into J. Edgar Hoover's era of disregard for civil rights and civil liberties.

The guidelines permit agents to use criteria such as national origin, travel history, race or ethnic background as part of opening an investigation. Ironically, the attorney general's original guidelines in this area were established to curb such profiling, after information surfaced about the unwarranted investigation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

These new guidelines represent a danger to the Arab- and Muslim-American community in particular, but to all Americans as well. In the era in which we live, it has almost become cliché -- sadly -- to point out that an attack on one American's civil liberties is an attack on all Americans and the American ideal.

But, to all Americans, the danger of this new policy is less romantic than that. The reality is that little or no scientific evidence supports the idea that racial profiling actually works. This alone should make every American concerned about the massive inefficiencies in the use of resources by the FBI in national security, an area in which we cannot afford to misappropriate one cent.

Furthermore, the guidelines will put a strain on a relationship that, contrary to racial profiling, has been proved to lead to the arrests of terror suspects. For years, leaders of the Arab- and Muslim-American community have been working with the FBI, and other law enforcement throughout the country, to break down barriers and create trust.

For these leaders, convincing community members that federal law enforcement is trustworthy after a long history of less-than-pleasant encounters is not an easy task. From Operation Boulder, a spying operation targeting Arab Americans initiated by President Richard Nixon in 1972, to the post-9/11 response, law-abiding Arab and Muslim Americans have often been unfairly targeted by law enforcement officials.

Still, community leaders and organizations have made great strides into bridging this gap and have created the type of cooperation that stops terror. This cooperation, for example, led to the FBI's breakup of a terror cell, the Lackawana Six, in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2002, which was greatly aided by a tip from the Arab and Muslim community in the area. Or other various cooperative meetings between FBI agents and Muslim community leaders to combat radicalization at the grassroots level.

Sadly, these new guidelines will put this relationship at risk. The FBI has taken steps to reach out to community members to develop and maintain a relationship precisely because solid human intelligence is invaluable when it comes to stopping crime.

The question that remains is: Does the Department of Justice realize how much more difficult the FBI's job will become if this relationship is in jeopardy, or do they simply not care?

The new guidelines come to light at a curious time, so close to a national election that may pivot on questions of national security and patriotism.

One cannot but wonder how much of this policy-making is being motivated by politics instead of a genuine interest in national security. It's time to focus on the types of methods that put terrorists behind bars, not those geared toward putting politicians in office. [Link]

US Senate Judiciary Committee leaders Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Monday, calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to postpone implementation of new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) guidelines until Congress has had a chance to review the changes. Opponents of the controversial guidelines argue that the changes, if adopted, could allow for inappropriate profiling and would allow agents to open terror investigations without evidence of any crime being committed. The senators wrote that Congress should be consulted because of the change in protocol regarding racial profiling in FBI investigations [Link]

Local FBI officials met with the Rio Grande Valley's Islamic community Saturday night to assuage their fears about the agency's investigations into the community and to discuss how the two groups can better work together.

While an FBI official explained the agency's work and how it changed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, local Muslims asked questions about its investigation of Muslims' donations to charities, wiretapping and agents' treatment of Muslim women.

John Johnson, the FBI special agent in charge of the Valley, addressed the crowd of more than 100 at al-Ridwan mosque, 910 Elsham Ave. The meeting followed other informal talks with members of the mosque starting last fall during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"After 9/11, things changed in the U.S., especially for Muslims," said Amin Ibrahim, a member of the mosque's board. "Everybody here in the Valley, we reaffirm our condemnation of such an attack."

During Johnson's nearly 20-minute speech, the FBI agent urged the Islamic community to have better communication with his agency and said the FBI is committed to protecting all Americans from threats to life and civil liberties.

"We are coming to talk to you because we need to find out what the community is about," Johnson said as he discussed the depart-ment's investigations. "This is the first step. ...

"Combating criminals is still the heart and soul of what we do," he said. "But the definition of criminals has broadened (since 9/11). ... The FBI's primary mission became preventing another attack on American soil."

His speech was followed by sunset prayers. Afterward, worshipers submitted anonymous questions on index cards, which a modera-tor then read aloud.

"What does the FBI expect from us?" one card read.

Johnson responded by repeating his call for good communication. He said the agency has to investigate all potential terrorist leads, even those that turn out to be unfounded. Recalling an actual situation, he said the FBI must even follow up on "ridiculous" charges lobbed by someone with a petty grudge against a Muslim man.

"The vast majority don't really have any basis," he said. "All we want is some kind of dialogue." [Link]

FBI agents announced Friday that they are increasing the reward money for information leading to the arrest of the shooter or shooters responsible for damaging a Brevard County mosque.

Police said in September of 2006, shots were fired into a Melbourne mosque. A member of the Islamic Society of Brevard County heard the shots and reported the incident to police.

Investigators now say the shooting was a hate crime. [Link]

The FBI has enlisted comedians in a drive to spruce up its image with Muslims and Arab-Americans damaged by a wave of arrests and searches since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

"It's so nice to be standing in front of the FBI and not be handcuffed," quipped Egyptian-American comedian Ahmed Ahmed, one of the performers at an FBI-sponsored comedy show during an American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee convention.

"Today's FBI. It's for you," said posters promoting the law-enforcement agency at the annual event attended by 1,000 people in a ballroom at a Washington, D.C., hotel on Saturday.

Sponsoring the show was also part of a campaign to recruit agents for a service that is seriously short of Muslims and Arab speakers at a time when U.S. security services fear attacks by Middle Eastern groups. [Link]

She is a mother of two, a Muslim Arab American, and a manager at a Sheraton Suites Hotel in Philadelphia. What could she possibly have to do with the 9/11 attacks more than five years ago?

Nothing, of course. But that didn't stop one of her employees from allegedly leaving her an ominous threatening note filled with venomous words and phrases such as "REMEMBER 9/11" … "You and your kids will pay" … and "death."

After getting the threat letter, the woman did the right thing: she contacted us for help. We were able to investigate the incident as a civil rights violation because the note involved a federally protected right of employment in a private business; the threat of force; and apparent bias involving race, religion, or ethnicity.

"Initially I was very hesitant about approaching the FBI," the victim said in an interview with the Muslim Public Affairs Council, or MPAC, which joined our Philadelphia office and the local U.S. Attorney's Office at a press conference Wednesday in announcing the indictment of a 36-year-old Philadelphia woman in the case earlier this week. "But along the way I found good people investigating my case."

That included an FBI agent from our Philadelphia office, who did some basic detective work to find the alleged culprit. The cryptic note, left in the victim's office last October, contained a series of threatening phrases cut from publications and attached to a partial sheet of lined paper. The agent discovered that the clippings appeared to come from brochures at the hotel, which led him to the suspect.

Brian Lynch, assistant special agent in charge of our Philadelphia office, noted that hate crimes targeting Arab, Muslim, and Sikh communities spiked after the 9/11 attacks, leading to more than 500 investigations and more than 100 local and federal convictions. Our latest stats show that 11 percent of the 1,314 hate crimes motivated by religious bias—128 in all—targeted Muslims. More than 30 percent of all reported hate crime offenses in 2005 involved intimidation similar to this case.

"Incidents of hate are under-reported out of fear of the FBI and government in general," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of MPAC, which works to protect the civil rights of Muslims. "In this case, the victim acquired the confidence in government as she interacted with law enforcement…. Our partnership with the FBI and with the Department of Justice, something we've worked on before 9/11, has helped support more government engagement from Muslim Americans."

With the success of this case and the positive interaction between this mother and FBI agents, we only hope that more Muslim and Arab Americans will have the confidence to step forward and report attacks against them based on hatred and discrimination. Our commitment to protecting their rights—and the rights of all Americans—remains strong. [Link]