Profiling Based on Nationality
The nationalism of the First World War drove citizens to be suspicious of their neighbors. While counter-espionage efforts were supposed to cover all peoples threatening the war effort of the United States, the suspicion and paranoia fell primarily upon German Americans, leading to the profiling and tracking of the preserved threat. This attempt to counter enemy spies and sabotage attempts, will be directly reflected in the executive orders of the Council of Defense specifically targeting foreigners and those of German descent not yet naturalized. Note these efforts primarily target men and women of “fighting age” or old enough to act as a saboteur. By forcing un-naturalized peoples of German descent to register at the post office, the National Council of Defense hoped to create a list of potential threats with photographic identification.
These efforts to catalog foreigners did not end with their names, addresses, and photographs. Profiling will include the property they owned and their monetary worth.
The Connecticut Council of Defense tried to catalog German property in order to profile the individual and judge if their wealth could pose a threat to the United States. This will lead to local agencies working for the Council of Defense to profile aliens living in their districts. It is important to note the term “enemy” is determined in this document. While naturalized citizens were given a higher degree of freedom, the suspicion was focused primarily on foreigners who have not yet been naturalized or have ties to Imperial Germany or its Allies, as shown in “Germans, Austro-Hungarians, etc. residing in the United States are not considered "enemies", but Americans residing on enemy soil are so considered.” The local agencies for the Council of Defense were to compile this catalog of enemies and enemy property.
While the local agencies compiled these rosters, local banks also submitted statements on the funds of these people. While profiling was intended to stop potential spies and acts of sabotage, no evidence exist that the continued profiling of known foreigners stopped any attack or act of sabotage.