Legislation to allow racial profiling of Arabs

[Magiver]

@rayh

But where is the evidence that racial profiling would/does work?

Let me try that again. Yes, the Israeli’s use it successfully on their airlines.

I would add that “racial profiling” has been attributed in discussions to something like DWB but that is not what profiling is about. True profiling does not involve a single parameter. It uses a number of markers that can include anything from race to purchasing patterns.

[you_with_the_face]

@John Mace

You’re being needlessly pedantic. “Racial profiling” got it’s name from targetting Blacks for certain crimes. Call it “Ethnic profiling” if you want. Same dif.

I know where it got its name from, John. I’m just bemused by the observation that Arabs are now treated like a race unto themselves now. Years ago I had a Egyptian guy swear up and down to my face that he was white, even though he could have been my brother. Now, I’m not so sure he’d be so vehement about his “racial identity”. Things have a way of changing.

[John_Mace]

@you with the face

I know where it got its name from, John. I’m just bemused by the observation that Arabs are now treated like a race unto themselves now. Years ago I had a Egyptian guy swear up and down to my face that he was white, even though he could have been my brother. Now, I’m not so sure he’d be so vehement about his “racial identity”. Things have a way of changing.

But they’re not being treated as a different “race”, just a different ethnic group. You’re just nitpicking the term “racial profiling”, and making the (unjiustified) leap to a conclusion that is incorrect.

[magellan01]

Yes, the terrorits *have * won. Because we’re losing our ability to be rational. How can one honestly argue that “profiling” doesn’t work? The police and the FBI do it every day. And catch criminals every day because of it.

Profiling merely gives the authorities a “picture” of the person who committed a crime. Since they don’t know the precise person, that picture defines a group. The smaller the group the better. When the group is narrowed down to one, Bingo.

Let’s say a crime was committed and a witness described the assailant as: white, male, 5’3" tall. Guess what, that’s the “profile” the police are going to use it looking for the criminal. Any one of those three characteristics would be somewhat helpful, but the more charecteristics they have the better. Because the police DON’T have to spend their limited resources and time looking at people six feet tall, or Asians. or Blacks, or Middle Easterners or 5’3" females of any stripe.

And let’s say there was more information from the witness, that the murderer was reciiting passages from Homer in the original Greek and had a NY Mets tatoo on his neck. So now we can add to the “profile” that he’s probably: a Greek scholoar and a Mets fan. That is good. The more they can norrow the profile, the more time they can spend looking at a smaller and smaller subset of the population.

Here’s a real-life example. When I was in junior high in a NYC suburb (smallis town: about 60% white, 40% balck) a gas station got held up by a guy with a shotgun. The attendant identified the guy as white (helpful), driving a station wagon (helpful) and standing near seven feet tall. That turned out to be REALLY helpful because there was only one guy in the few neighboring towns who was that tall–6-10".

I would think that the effectiveness of “profiling” is obvious, but I guess not. Maybe it’s just when we get to “race” or “ethnicity” that some people over react and want to take it off the table.

That’s not to say that one can’t argue against such profiling, just that it be done honestly. Harborwolf raises the correct issue:

“Just because something may be effective does not automatically mean we should do it.”

It could very well be that the enormous benefits of racial profilng are outweighed by other factors–for instance, that the amount of resentment it engenders creates more crime. Or that it so offends our collective sensibilities that we simply reject it. But at least we can now make a more rational assessment, as it acknowledges the success police have with profiling every day. When we walk away , at least we know what we’re walking away from.

As far as terrorism goes, the reality is that these heinous acts are, overwhelmingly, committed by Muslim extremists, who are, overwhelmingly, of middle-eastern descent. Exceptions like MacVeigh and Rudolph simply prove the rule. If, in the future, a slew of MacVeigh-types blew up more people–thus introduciing a new pattern into our experience with terrorist acts–then profiling for terrorists by racial/religous criteria might cease to make sense. Similarly, if women from Scandinavia suddenly joined the ranks of the terrorists.

Until then, I vote that we use all tools at our disposal. Starting with our brains.

My hat is off to Dov Hikind.

[Harborwolf]

But in the example you use Magellan01, you already have a suspect and a crime. We have neither. This would be closer to stopping all cars with NRA stickers because the owner of the car may have a weapon that they intend to use in a crime.

[Magiver]

@Harborwolf

But in the example you use Magellan01, you already have a suspect and a crime. We have neither. This would be closer to stopping all cars with NRA stickers because the owner of the car may have a weapon that they intend to use in a crime.

A crime hasn’t been committed?
-WTC bombing
-Somalia
-USS Cole
-Nigerian Embassy
-WTC 9/11 attack (2 aircraft full of people and a number of buildings full of people)
-Pentagon 9/11 attack (1 aircraft full of people and part of a building)
-4th hijacked aircraft 9/11
-Spanish transit system
-Brittish transit system
-2nd attempt on Brittish transit system

I’m sure there’s something I’ve missed but there is a common marker in the list above and that marker is part of every profile currently used by the countries attacked to find the people responsible.

[rjung]

Magiver, why did you cherry-pick incidents to reflect your conclusions while ignoring terrorist incidents which don’t fit your racial profiling scheme, such as the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing, or the Washington DC sniper attacks, or the still-unidentified anthrax mailings?

[magellan01]

@Harborwolf

But in the example you use Magellan01, you already have a suspect and a crime. We have neither. This would be closer to stopping all cars with NRA stickers because the owner of the car may have a weapon that they intend to use in a crime.

I disagree. What we have is a string of tightly related crimes. And we can identify a group of suspects that are the ones most likely to continue the pattern. We should try to make that group as small as possible so we can focus on them, and one would hope, avert another 911 or similar attack.

We should use behavior, ideology, fast-food preference, or anything else in order to define the group as tighly as possible. The more criteria we apply the smaller we can make the group. The smaller the group, the more effectively we can apply our resources. Why doesn’t it make sense to have race or religion or anything else be one of the factors we use to narrow the field?

An an aside, my guess is that during the decades-long fight against organized, the FBI looked more closely at Italian-Americans (my background) than Finnish-Americans, Scottish-Americans, Malaysian-Americans, Nigerian-Americans, or Native Americans. Do you think this was unwise? Or unfair? I don’t.

[foolsguinea]

@Kimstu

Assemblyman Dov Hikind should be ashamed of himself for introducing this proposal. Personally, I’m particularly revolted that a Jewish Democrat thinks this is a good idea. Not to go all Godwin or anything, but doesn’t the prospect of labeling a particular ethnic/religious group uniquely dangerous and set aside for special scrutiny set off any little alarm bells in his mind?

Um, no. What planet have you been on? Considering what the Jews have to go through in Israel; considering that it was those of a particular ethnic/religious group that tried to exterminate European Jewry; I imagine most culturally Jewish people are far more in favor of racial profiling than the rest of us.

[Dead_Badger]

@John Mace

I don’t know of any data, but clearly if you think that the searches are meaningful (I’m not sure they are), then narrowing your target group can only make them more effective as long as you are not missing targets. That’s the key. I think it’s reasonably to focus the searches on men and women between the ages of 16 and 40. Add to that some criteria like “has a backpack” or “wears bulky clothes” and you might increacse the efficiency even more. At what point it becomes useful to add an element of “racial profiling”, I don’t know, but I don’t think it should be dismissed out of hand because “it doesn’t work”. Do we know that “it doesn’t work”?

The argument which convinces me that profiling is probably counter-productive is this: by focusing on people of a certain group or characteristic, you are in effect advertising to the criminal fraternity what one needs to look like in order not to get searched. So you only search people between the ages of 16 and 40? Fantastic, say I, in my guise as a terrorist. I may not be able to find an elderly suicide bomber, but I’m pretty sure I can find a sympathetic sexagenarian to transport the bomb or materials, allowing my not notably arabic-looking young zealot to travel without suspicion. Even better if you’re only going to target people of a certain skin colour; now you’re giving me even more to work with. You’re poking great big gaping holes in your security net, and pretending that they make it more efficient. Furthermore, by focusing on one narrow type of crime, you decrease the network’s efficiency at detecting other sorts of criminal. By fallaciously assuming that Terrorism Is The Problem, and pretending in effect that Arabic-looking terrorists are all we need to worry about, we blind ourselves to all the other malfeasance we should be guarding against, too. For me, these arguments at the very least demand that those seeking to institute profiling provide some sort of proof of effectiveness, over and above the “common sense” reasoning traditionally invoked.

On a more flippant note, I think the best profiling would be to check if someone has more than one name. It’s always “Osman Hussain, 27 (also known as Hamdi Isaac)”, or “Yasin Hassan Omar (also known as Barry Islam)” (okay, I made that one up). Although we’ll want to be careful not to arrest Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen).

[rayh]

Here is what security expert Bruce Schneier has to say about profiling.

Whenever you design a security system with two ways through – an easy way and a hard way – you invite the attacker to take the easy way. Profile for young Arab males, and you’ll get terrorists that are old non-Arab females.
If we are going to increase security against terrorism, the young Arab males living in our country are precisely the people we want on our side. Discriminating against them in the name of security is not going to make them more likely to help.
Despite what many people think, terrorism is not confined to young Arab males. Shoe-bomber Richard Reid was British. Germaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 London bombers, was Afro-Caribbean. Here are some more examples:

      In 1986, a 32-year-old Irish woman, pregnant at the time, was about to board an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv when El Al security agents discovered an explosive device hidden in the false bottom of her bag. The woman’s boyfriend--the father of her unborn child--had hidden the bomb.

      In 1987, a 70-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman--neither of whom were Middle Eastern--posed as father and daughter and brought a bomb aboard a Korean Air flight from Baghdad to Thailand. En route to Bangkok, the bomb exploded, killing all on board.

      In 1999, men dressed as businessmen (and one dressed as a Catholic priest) turned out to be terrorist hijackers, who forced an Avianca flight to divert to an airstrip in Colombia, where some passengers were held as hostages for more than a year-and-half.

  The 2002 Bali terrorists were Indonesian. The Chechnyan terrorists who downed the Russian planes were women. Timothy McVeigh and the Unibomber were Americans. The Basque terrorists are Basque, and Irish terrorists are Irish. Tha Tamil Tigers are Sri Lankan.

  And many Muslims are not Arabs. Even worse, almost everyone who is Arab is not a terrorist -- many people who look Arab are not even Muslims. So not only are there an large number of false negatives -- terrorists who don't meet the profile -- but there an enormous number of false positives: innocents that do meet the profile.

There is also a link to this paper which looks at the effectiveness of profiling versus random searches.

[Harborwolf]

@Magiver

A crime hasn’t been committed?
-WTC bombing
-Somalia
-USS Cole
-Nigerian Embassy
-WTC 9/11 attack (2 aircraft full of people and a number of buildings full of people)
-Pentagon 9/11 attack (1 aircraft full of people and part of a building)
-4th hijacked aircraft 9/11
-Spanish transit system
-Brittish transit system
-2nd attempt on Brittish transit system

I’m sure there’s something I’ve missed but there is a common marker in the list above and that marker is part of every profile currently used by the countries attacked to find the people responsible.

So what you and Magellan01 are saying is that the suspects are still on the loose and the random bag searches are an attempt to find them?

I’m going to pick his example apart bit by bit so you will know why it is a bad example.

@Magellan01

Here’s a real-life example. When I was in junior high in a NYC suburb (smallis town: about 60% white, 40% balck) a gas station got held up by a guy with a shotgun. The attendant identified the guy as white (helpful), driving a station wagon (helpful) and standing near seven feet tall. That turned out to be REALLY helpful because there was only one guy in the few neighboring towns who was that tall–6-10".

First of all, we have a gas station that has been held up. That is the crime. In NYC we have not had a train bombing. London and Madrid have, but not us. There has been no crime committed against us.

Next we have an eyewitness who identified the suspect. Since we have had no attacks on our trains, we have zero eyewitnesses and zero suspects to identify.

What we are looking to do in the NYC subway is to search more people of a certain skin color because we think they may be more likely to commit a possible attack. In Magellano1s example we had a definite suspect in mind because we saw who committed it. Unless Precrime sprang up overnight, we don’t even know if the terrorists are going to bomb our trains and what ethnicity they will be when it happens.

[Harborwolf]

@magellan01

I disagree. What we have is a string of tightly related crimes. And we can identify a group of suspects that are the ones most likely to continue the pattern. We should try to make that group as small as possible so we can focus on them, and one would hope, avert another 911 or similar attack.

But the suspects that have commited the attacks are all either captured or dead yes? Your example is lousy.

We should use behavior, ideology, fast-food preference, or anything else in order to define the group as tighly as possible. The more criteria we apply the smaller we can make the group. The smaller the group, the more effectively we can apply our resources. Why doesn’t it make sense to have race or religion or anything else be one of the factors we use to narrow the field?

The problem with that is that we have a large population with a very small percentage that may be terrorists. We would be shaking down (and pissing off) nearly every piece of hay because they may be a needle.

An an aside, my guess is that during the decades-long fight against organized, the FBI looked more closely at Italian-Americans (my background) than Finnish-Americans, Scottish-Americans, Malaysian-Americans, Nigerian-Americans, or Native Americans. Do you think this was unwise? Or unfair? I don’t.

I’m no expert, but I’m going to guess that organized crime has had a far greater impact on society than terrorism has. We’ve had two attacks and only one really major one on US soil (WTC and the Sequel 9/11). How many crimes did the mafia commit? Was it more than two? If we were in Israel, I would say that we might have cause. We ain’t, so we don’t.

If I may ask a silly question or two, would it be okay to start searching the bags of African Americans for drugs or illegal weapons because they are more likely to have them? Would it be acceptable to ask for the ID of everyone who looks hispanic because they are more likely to be illegal immigrants? We’re probably more likely to find them than we are a terrorist. Why are we only doing possible arabs?

[Martiju]

I would have thought this kind of thing, absolutely unheard of in the UK before now, would be enough to argue against any kind of ethnic profiling.

That’s not to say that Menezes was only a suspect because of his ethnicity (he happened to live in the same block of flats as those that attempted bombings on 21/7) but I’m not the only one to think that his non-whiteness (and non-blackness, actually) was a contributory factor.

[John_Mace]

@Dead Badger

The argument which convinces me that profiling is probably counter-productive is this: by focusing on people of a certain group or characteristic, you are in effect advertising to the criminal fraternity what one needs to look like in order not to get searched. So you only search people between the ages of 16 and 40? Fantastic, say I, in my guise as a terrorist. I may not be able to find an elderly suicide bomber, but I’m pretty sure I can find a sympathetic sexagenarian to transport the bomb or materials, allowing my not notably arabic-looking young zealot to travel without suspicion. Even better if you’re only going to target people of a certain skin colour; now you’re giving me even more to work with. You’re poking great big gaping holes in your security net, and pretending that they make it more efficient. Furthermore, by focusing on one narrow type of crime, you decrease the network’s efficiency at detecting other sorts of criminal. By fallaciously assuming that Terrorism Is The Problem, and pretending in effect that Arabic-looking terrorists are all we need to worry about, we blind ourselves to all the other malfeasance we should be guarding against, too. For me, these arguments at the very least demand that those seeking to institute profiling provide some sort of proof of effectiveness, over and above the “common sense” reasoning traditionally invoked.

But here’s the flaw in your logic: You act as if al Quaeda (or whoever) can simply flip a switch and choose a different group from which to recruit potential suicide bombers. They absolutely cannot. There’s an entire infrastructure set up to recruit young, Islamin men. How effective are they going to be in getting recruits from the group of “elderly, European looking women”? What do they do, set up a Madrassa and advertise in Better Homes and Gardens? Also, there is no need to divulge the details of the inspection plan, nor is there a need to expempt certain groups entirely from the inspections.

I agree that our response to terror acts has been overly reactive: Bomb on subway? Quick, institute subway searches. It is indeed much easier for the terror network to switch targets than it is to switch recruiting tactics. There is a certain CYA aspect to this, as the police would be crucified if there was a subway attack in NY and they hadn’t instituted inspections. It’s a no win situation for them.

[Harborwolf]

@John Mace

There is a certain CYA aspect to this, as the police would be crucified if there was a subway attack in NY and they hadn’t instituted inspections. It’s a no win situation for them.

It’s only a no win because people seem to believe that there is a magic cloak of safety that can prevent us from ever being attacked again and they expect the government to have it.

Of course there is no such thing. If terrorists want to attack us, they’ll find a way. It doesn’t matter how many searches we perform or which ethnic groups we target. It’s just a question of how much we want to give up in order to minimize risk.

[Dead_Badger]

@John Mace

But here’s the flaw in your logic: You act as if al Quaeda (or whoever) can simply flip a switch and choose a different group from which to recruit potential suicide bombers. They absolutely cannot.

But it gives them something to aim at. There are plenty of western-looking Muslims (like the ones I linked to). Yes, it means that they can start targeting their volunteers based on their looks as well as their zealotry, and if profiling means that there’s enough of a benefit in doing so, that’s what they will do. It will be difficult, but they’ve demonstrated themselves capable of huge levels of planning and effort. It is indisputable that by biasing your search policy, you are creating groups of people who are less scrutinised. Even if it’s not Al-Qaeda who exploit this information, someone can, and this makes you less secure than when you started.

Also, there is no need to divulge the details of the inspection plan, nor is there a need to expempt certain groups entirely from the inspections.

You can’t make search policy unobservable, even if you don’t advertise it. Even assuming that no-one connected with terrorists is capable of getting a job in airport security and discovering the policy, people will be able to see who gets searched. And I know you’re not talking about exempting certain groups entirely, but this is irrelevant. The degree to which you discriminate dictates the benefit available from not fitting the stereotype, and the level to which that benefit will be taken advantage of.

[fluiddruid]

@John Mace

But here’s the flaw in your logic: You act as if al Quaeda (or whoever) can simply flip a switch and choose a different group from which to recruit potential suicide bombers. They absolutely cannot. There’s an entire infrastructure set up to recruit young, Islamin men. How effective are they going to be in getting recruits from the group of “elderly, European looking women”?

It is more difficult, but nonetheless we should not set up a class of people that are safe. If we are only searching people who appear Middle Eastern, we are going to run into problems. Can’t a twenty year old Middle Eastern man change his manner of dress, hairstyle, perhaps a little bit of makeup, and pass for another ethnicity?

We can reasonably expect that whatever rules we make will be taken advantage of. I’m sure that terrorist groups can focus on finding individuals who could pass as another ethnicity. Therefore, are we going to racially profile all young males that are people of color? I can see some Middle Eastern men passing as white as well, in certain circumstances. Could you reliably tell apart anyone as a Greek, Iranian, or Brazilian, just by looking at them? The boundaries are relatively meaningless.

Besides which, we’re assuming that the participant might always be willing and cognizant of their role. 90 year old aunt Fanny might be coerced or tricked into carrying a package for someone else. Remember, the terrorists will find out the rules and use them against us.

In addition, it is troubling to think that certain individuals will be harassed for trying to use public transportation or facilities based on their appearance. Imagine yourself in the place of someone who has facial features that are, or could be considered to be, Middle Eastern. Are you willing to endure additional screenings, searches, and questions on a consistent basis, just because of how you look? I’m not so sure that I would be so generous.

Racial profiling has questionable benefits and obvious negatives. To some people it seems common sense at first, but you need to keep in mind that terrorist groups’ whole focus in on successful bombings. If we use patterns to search, they will take advantage of this. Random searches can’t be predicted and treat everyone equally. Not a great solution, but, in my opinion, a better one.

[DMC]

@John Mace

But here’s the flaw in your logic: You act as if al Quaeda (or whoever) can simply flip a switch and choose a different group from which to recruit potential suicide bombers. They absolutely cannot. There’s an entire infrastructure set up to recruit young, Islamin men.

Even if that was true, and even if it remained true in the future (I disagree, but I’ll play along), what does a young Muslim man look like?

Want to bet that John would get through security without a hitch if this profiling is implemented?

What are the chances of Michael catching the attention of one of our eagle-eyed profilers?

Which of these kids are going to be searched due to fitting the profile?

Angry and disillusioned young men can be found all over the world. So can Muslims. The former are fairly vulnerable to the lure of becoming terrorists. The latter aren’t.

[magellan01]

@Harborwolf

So what you and Magellan01 are saying is that the suspects are still on the loose and the random bag searches are an attempt to find them?

First of all, we have a gas station that has been held up. That is the crime. In NYC we have not had a train bombing. London and Madrid have, but not us. There has been no crime committed against us.

No. What you seem to be arguing is the right/responsibility of law enforcement to look at patterns of past crimes and use them to stop future crimes before they happen. What do you think would happen if you walked into a bank in Miami in a ski mask and a trench coast. “What? Why are you stopping me, it’s just a ski mask.” How about the sale of military assault rifles? I have never been accused of committing a crime, whay can’t I by one. I have an interest in miitary weapons. Why sholdn’t they be legal for someone like me?

Next we have an eyewitness who identified the suspect. Since we have had no attacks on our trains, we have zero eyewitnesses and zero suspects to identify.

While no trains have been bombed in the US there has been a pattern of terrorism against the US by Islamiic Fundementalists. You may remember the one on 9/11. So according to your logic, it would be okay to look into 20ish-year-old Mulim males who want to learn how to fly 747s? Or not?

What we are looking to do in the NYC subway is to search more people of a certain skin color because we think they may be more likely to commit a possible attack.

I never said that ONE factor should be used. To your point, I don’t think that one factor–like skin color in a city as diverse as NY–wold get the pool small enought to be actionable. But if you are going to attempt to create a “profile” so law enforcement resources can be applied more efficiently, then yes, race should be one, as should religion. I no it’s taboo, but look who’s been committing these acts.

In Magellano1s example we had a definite suspect in mind because we saw who committed it. Unless Precrime sprang up overnight, we don’t even know if the terrorists are going to bomb our trains and what ethnicity they will be when it happens.

So, again, is your argument that we should do nothing? Do you oppose all crime prevention measures?

But the suspects that have commited the attacks are all either captured or dead yes? Your example is lousy.

Again, is your argument that we should do nothing? Do you oppose all crime prevention measures?

The problem with that is that we have a large population with a very small percentage that may be terrorists. We would be shaking down (and pissing off) nearly every piece of hay because they may be a needle.

No one is talking about “shaking down” anyone. And resorting to such loaded language weakens your point. As I stated above, if the “profiling” factors used resorted in having to look at “every piece of hay”, it would not be actionable. You haven’t gotten the pool small enough yet.

[QUOTE]
I’m no expert, but I’m going to guess that organized crime has had a far greater impact on society than terrorism has. We’ve had two attacks and only one really major one on US soil (WTC and the Sequel 9/11). How many crimes did the mafia commit? Was it more than two? If we were in Israel, I would say that we might have cause. We ain’t, so we don’t.

So, you admit that “profiling” is okay, if the threat is large enough. Is that right?

And you see only two incidents? You don’t see the attack on the USS Cole, the Marine barracks in Beirut, the Achille Lauro, etc. as part of a larger pattern?

If I may ask a silly question or two, would it be okay to start searching the bags of African Americans for drugs or illegal weapons because they are more likely to have them? Would it be acceptable to ask for the ID of everyone who looks hispanic because they are more likely to be illegal immigrants? We’re probably more likely to find them than we are a terrorist. Why are we only doing possible arabs?

Earlier you seemed to imply that the severity of the crime should be taken into account (organized crime/mafia). But now you’re arguing that we can’t make distinctions based on severity? I’m not sure what your position actually is. Could you clarify?

I’m going to pick his example apart bit by bit so you will know why it is a bad example.

?