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Washington: Attorney General Michael Mukasey says the Bush administration will do everything it can to make sure the government has what it needs to fight terrorists before a new president takes over in January.
But civil liberties advocates say, however, that should not include letting the FBI use terrorist profiles that potentially single out Muslims, Arabs and other racial and ethnic groups instead of relying on evidence of wrongdoing as the basis for investigating Americans.
Mukasey was to appear Wednesday morning at a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. Senators are expected to ask President George W. Bush's third attorney general about the proposed Justice Department policy that critics say opens the door to racial profiling.
Mukasey said he was considering changing the Justice policies to let FBI agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.
The factors that could make a US citizen or resident the subject of an investigation include travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person's race or ethnicity.
The Justice Department has declined to discuss the details of the proposed policy because it is not yet final.
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