Racial profiling flap

last updated 8 January 2015

Seattle

A controversy erupted this week over the FBI’s release of photographs of two men it wants to question about their activities aboard a Seattle ferry. The two unidentified men, who have dark hair and olive skin, aroused the suspicions of crew members when they asked detailed questions about the boat and entered areas off-limits to passengers. The FBI last week distributed photographs of the men to Seattle news outlets, requesting the public’s help in identifying them. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer declined to print the pictures, saying that the two men “may as easily be tourists from Texas as terrorists from the Mideast.” Arab-American groups complained that the FBI was engaged in racial profiling, which the FBI denied. The Justice Department last year said Washington’s ferry system, which carries more than 24 million passengers a year, was a prime target for terrorism.