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Platform for Prejudice

How the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative Invites Racial Profiling, Erodes Civil Liberties, and Undermines Security
Published on
March 1, 2010
Last Updated
June 21, 2019

Thomas Cincotta’s report is a comprehensive investigation of the post-9/11 “information sharing environment” among law enforcement, explaining how Suspicious Activity Reporting violates civil liberties without yielding any greater security.

Platform for Individual beliefs that favor one group over others, or disfavor a particular group, and/or laws, policies and traditions that inscribe such beliefs in institutions. Learn more outlines the push to enlist law enforcement as intelligence officers by encouraging police to report 1st Amendment-protected activities like photography, taking notes, making diagrams, and “espousing A generic category for anyone who holds beliefs outside of those approved by mainstream or broadly centrist preferences. Learn more views.”  The report concludes that the Congress should hold hearings to evaluate the lawfulness and effectiveness of suspicious activity reporting and order reforms prior to nationwide implementation.

Authors

Thomas Cincotta is the former civil liberties program director at Political Research Associates. A criminal defense lawyer, he led the Denver chapter of the National Lawyers Guild [www.nlg.org] (NLG) in support of peace groups and others during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and connected progressive lawyers with other community efforts around sentencing reform, immigrant rights, and police misconduct. He also represented migrant farm workers and served on the board of El Centro Humanitario.