The Chicago Police Department has started randomly searching CTA riders for explosives. Medill’s Adam Banicki spent time in the train station to find out how riders feel about the measure.

Nevertheless, the FBI’s counterterrorism world is complicated, as a recent ACLU case demonstrates, and it may be undergoing some changes. The ACLU “is seeking records from more than two dozen FBI offices around the nation about the collection and use of race and ethnicity data in local communities,” according to CNN.

ACLU attorneys are concerned about the possibility of racial profiling, particularly since an FBI guidebook describes maps of “’so-called ‘ethnic-oriented’ businesses, behaviors, lifestyle characteristics and cultural traditions in communities with concentrated ethnic populations.” The lawsuit raises questions – first, whether or not the FBI agents are continuing to maintain their rigorous legal standards during investigation and whether they would be able to use the evidence in a courtroom. And, second, about the FBI’s ongoing campaign to solicit information from local Arab-American communities.

Nobody has been more concerned about the rise in homegrown terrorism than Arab-American business leaders in cities like Detroit, with its large Arab-American population, and, as they have explained to me, would gladly help the FBI ferret out suspects within their midst. However, the business leaders would like to be treated as friends and allies during the search for terrorists – rather than as mere interpreters or, even worse, as suspects themselves.

The relationship between Arab-American leaders and FBI agents has been tense since 9/11, and the ACLU case is likely to make things worse. It is now up to the FBI to tamp down the controversy over their investigative techniques and to maintain support among Arab-American leaders and others who may be able to help identify people who will someday become radicalized. The FBI has enjoyed high standing in the counterterrorism world, and now they are being put to a test.