FBI director James Comey. Image by Getty Images.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — FBI Director James Comey called for improvements in how law enforcement reports hate crimes in a speech to the Anti-Defamation League on Monday.

“We must do a better job of tracking and reporting hate crime to fully understand what is happening in our country so we can stop it,” he told the group’s annual Washington, D.C., conference. “Some jurisdictions do not report hate crime data.”

Comey’s endorsement is a boost for the ADL, which has long sought uniform standards for hate crimes data across the United States and Europe as a means of tracking spikes and decreases in bias-related crimes.

However, Comey cautioned against limiting hate speech.

“You don’t have to like it,” he said of hate speech, “but we have to protect it,” he said to applause.

Comey noted, as he has in the past, that the FBI requires its agents to tour the Holocaust museum, emphasizing how evil can be perpetuated by those who believe they are doing good. Nazis, he said, were “joined and followed by people who loved their families, who took soup to sick neighbors — good people.”

He called the Holocaust “the most significant event in human history.”

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a matched gift today.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$120 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT