New York City Mayor: Don't Racially Profile Terrorists NewsMax.com | June 2, 2002 | Carl Limbacher
The mayor of the city where 2,800 Americans died at the hands of Islamic terrorists on 9-11 said Sunday that the FBI shouldn't use its newly expanded surveillance powers to monitor mosques - even if such a move would help stop another terrorist attack - because it would amount to racial profiling.
"In the end, I vote for the Constitution," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg.
"You just cannot ever take away people's civil liberties and my heart goes out to anybody who is stopped because of the color of their skin or the way they dress or which temple, mosque or church they happen to come out of."
When Malzberg asked specifically if he thought racial profiling was necessary "at a time like this," Bloomberg replied:
"Whether you need it or not, it is so against everything that this country was founded on, I don't know how you could possibly argue to do it. No, I am very much against racial profiling."
Bloomberg continued:
"I don't care what statistics you show me in a little group of - in - you know - ah - it is just against everything America stands for to hold somebody who's just walking down the street to a different standard because of what they look like or what other people who may have came from the same country they did originally or practiced their religion; what other people do.
"America is country founded so that everybody is treated equally and free. And while that does mean some police techniques may not be able to be used even though they might enhance our security; if that's the choice we've got to make - remember why people for the last 225 years have fought and died for this country."
Bloomberg concluded, "If you have to make a mistake you make a mistake favoring the Bill of Rights rather than going against it."