Coalition Letter to Secretary Mayorkas Urging an End to Biased Profiling and Seeking Privacy-Protecting Surveillance Reforms

On September 15, 2021, the ACLU and a coalition of rights groups sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Mayorkas urging an end to bias-based profiling, and a comprehensive public mapping of DHS’s programs that collect, retain, and disseminate information about Americans and travelers to and from the United States. It also urged privacy-protecting reforms to DHS’s collection and monitoring of social media information; an end to dragnet surveillance by DHS and its contractors; a suspension of programs that claim to predict fraud, violence, or domestic terrorism; and, reforms to empower the Department’s Privacy Office and Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in carrying out their functions.