gs. However, federal, state and local authorities largely drew back and condemned such racial profiling in various ways, in large part due to widespread public acceptance of the civil rights gains of the 1960s and since. During the period from roughly 1989 to 2001, a national furor, as reflected in public opinion polls and media reporting, developed over this form of racial profiling. This coincided with a reduction in violent crime rates. However, the federal and state judiciary, especially the United States Supreme Court, for the most part resisted this trend.
After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, public attention abruptly shifted away from racial profiling on the highways to the use of ethnic identifiers by national and state law enforcement and immigration authorities in the surveillance, detention and removal of aliens (or American citizens) suspected of endangering national security. Arabs, Muslims and others confused in the public mind wit
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