The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday filed a lawsuit seeking to force the FBI to disclose information about its questioning of Arab Americans and Muslims in the agency's drive to thwart any pre-election attack.
In its lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, the civil rights advocacy group said it had received reports that numerous individuals had been "interrogated" by the FBI since the summer "solely because they are Muslims or of Middle Eastern descent."
An FBI representative in Washington could not be immediately reached for comment. The agency has previously said it was seeking to reassure Arab and Muslim groups that it was not discriminating against them.
The ACLU said much of the investigation was being done by members of Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which include members of state and local police working with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
"Many Muslims, members of immigrant communities, and persons with ties to the Middle East and South Asia believe that they are at risk of harassment and unlawful or unwarranted monitoring, surveillance and interrogation," the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit is seeking internal FBI documents that would shed light on how the government is selecting its targets for questioning and what it does with the information gathered.
The FBI has launched a drive to seek information from Muslims and Arab Americans to help thwart any attack before the Nov. 2 national elections in the United States. The drive includes a stepped up program of interviews.
But some Muslim groups have complained that the campaign is too sweeping and unfairly singles them out for questioning, detention and other civil rights abuses.
"It's time for the FBI to come clean about this unprecedented campaign and the activities of their joint task forces in our state," John Crew, an ACLU attorney, said in a statement.
"If they want the public to believe that these interviews are truly voluntary, why won't they release policies requiring officers to respect the constitutional rights of individuals to answer these chilling questions?"