Feds to Ban Religious, Racial Profiling

The Obama adminstration will formally announce new limits on racial profiling on Monday, but the policy changes won't apply to local police departments. Under the new regulations from the Justice Department, racial profiling will be banned from national security cases for the first time. The FBI will not be permitted to consider gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity in deciding whether to open cases. These new rules will be introduced in addition to existing prohibitions on considering race and ethnicity. However, state and local law enforcement, which have faced charges of racism in light of the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, will only have to follow these regulations when they work on federal task forces. Otherwise, the Department of Justice's curbs are just guidelines, and they are not obligated to adhere to them in their own communities.