Secret Service Seeks Race of White House Party Guests

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Secret Service has asked for the race of guests attending a media reception with President Bush before the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday.

Some senior correspondents who cover Bush regularly and have attended the reception in past years said they had not been asked for race information previously and were shocked at the request.

"(White House) reporters already have hard (permanent) passes, have gone through all the checks, and are often in reach of the president," said Ed Chen of the Los Angeles Times, who is secretary of the association, on Friday. "I think it's unnecessary and offensive."

The Secret Service said it routinely asks for information about the race of people who are going to be in close proximity to the president.

"It's nothing to do with racial profiling. We wouldn't tolerate any racial or cultural bias in these types of matters," Tom Mazur, spokesman for the Secret Service, said.

But he said he did not know whether race information had been requested for this reception in previous years.

The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting Bush and his family, "routinely" asks for five "identifiers" of people who will be near the president to run through a criminal data base, Mazur said.

The five factors -- name, date-of-birth, Social Security number, gender and race -- are used to search the database "in a most timely and effective manner," he said.

"When the president travels or has events, this is information that is routinely requested," Mazur said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the White House had not requested the information on race, and it was a law enforcement matter.

"Law enforcement officials, the Secret Service, can talk to you about that and tell you why they have done that for a long time for criminal background checks and so that they can get those checks done in a timely manner," McClellan said.