Good morning. I would like to begin by thanking my colleagues at Amnesty International USA for taking the lead on this important issue. I'd also like to give special recognition to the Honorable Timothy K. Lewis for chairing Amnesty's hearings around the country, which gave voice to the profound indignity suffered by so many under the auspices of law enforcement operations and procedures.
I have more than 25 years of experience in highly dangerous law enforcement operations that included supervising fugitive manhunts, drug and gun interdiction with the United States Marshals Service, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and other federal, state and local police organizations. I have tracked down some of the most dangerous fugitives across the nation.
I have had many proud moments in those 25 years, but other moments have been shattering. I will never forget the words of an Assistant Special-Agent-In-Charge in the DEA prior to executing our special task force assignments on fugitive drug and gun interdiction operations. I was concerned that we were constantly setting up enforcement operations in major urban areas where the targeted individuals were mainly black and brown. His reply was: 'Fogg, we must go to the weakest link in order to justify our numbers and therefore stay in existence. If we go into the affluent white suburbs and start locking them up for the same violations, then their friends and associates in high places will question our motives and operations. We may get a call to shut down altogether. It is safer for our existence and overtime to justify our arrest numbers by going after the weakest links.'
Amnesty International's new report shows that we must understand the marriage between racism and law enforcement and the disproportionate impact on those who will be racially profiled, arrested, sentenced, imprisoned and, in some cases, put to death.
This behavior is not new to law enforcement. Racial profiling has been in place for years.
Last year the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that police couldn't search a vehicle they stopped unless they have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity has occurred. The court said motorists needed protection because of "widespread abuses" by police after New Jersey officials admitted that troopers practiced racial profiling.
And where there is profiling there is also discrimination.
In April 1998, I won a federal jury award of $4 million and a finding that the US Marshals Service provided a hostile environment for African Americans who were deputy US Marshals. The Honorable Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson stated that "The jury obviously inferred from the evidence of the endemic atmosphere of racial disharmony and mistrust within the United States Marshals Service that all explanations were suspect, and that occult racism was more likely the reason than any other for Fogg's misadventures in the Marshals Service hierarchy."
A March 2002 Labor Relations Press Publication printed an article in the Federal Equal Employment Organization Advisor titled, "Discrimination 'endemic' to federal law enforcement." The article states, "in the past couple of years more than a thousand law enforcement officers in the FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Agency, Marshals Service, US Customs Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the US Capital Police have filed class action lawsuits against their employer."
As Amnesty International's report amply demonstrates, my experiences are shared by many others, and the scope of racial profiling has expanded in recent years to include not only African Americans and Hispanics but also those who are Muslim and Native American and those of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent.
Racial profiling is a threat to our national security, to the effectiveness and fairness of our criminal justice system, and it is an affront to the dignity of all Americans. I highly recommend the passage of federal legislation to combat the use of racial profiling by law enforcement officials. Thank you.

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