Maybe my posts to you were unclear. My point was that I feel you misrepresented the “pro-profiling” position in this thread twice. Once in post #107 when you said:
“Hauling every Eastern Sephardic or Mizrahim Jew or Costa Rican out of line to be grilled is not going to make us safer.”
And again in post #113, where you said:
“but if you handed out that photo at LAX, you’d have half the guys deboarding from Mexico and Central and South America getting stopped.”
These are certainly not ideas I’ve advocated. (I don’t think anyone else on the thread has either.) Please review my responses in thread #s 110, 114, and 117. I do not think you are doing this intentionally or maliciously, but I think it gives readers a mistaken impression.
My position on what you proposed above as examples is in complete agreement with yours. I’ve said all along that if a proposed “profile” didn’t result in a small enough pool as to be actionable and useful that it should NOT be done. If you disagree, please show me where I have indicated otherwise and am thus deserving of being associated with the ridiculous examples you give.
You have shown no such thing. You have shared why you think it would be a bad idea. In case you didn’t know, there is a difference.
But, for the record, I should point out that your post above was a response to this exchange. (The first one was a post to tomndebb.)
So, aside from that fact the OP asked no specific questions to frame the debate (feel free to reread), the only logical conclusion I can draw from your posts (above) is that you assumed that racial profiling would be the ONLY tool available to law enforcement; that the OP, and the article cited, was NOT merely considering ADDING profiling to the tools they already have, BUT TO THROW THEM ALL OUT and REPLACE them with profiling?
Jeez, don’t you thiink it would be safer, more logical to think that neither the OP or the experts cited in the article were talking about ADDING “profiling” to law enforcement aresenal?
If not, please indicate from where you draw that inference.
If you’d like to improve your analogy, you might want to state: “It would be like profiling Texan TV stars, and when I ask you what they look like, you say ‘The cast of Dallas’”.
Example 1: (A )All people: (B) Middle Eastern males 20-40: (C) Islamic terrorists: (D) perpetrators of 911, WTC '93, USS Cole, etc.
Example 2: (A) All people: (B) Texans: (C) Texan TV stars: (D) cast of Dallas
Your analogy was that profiling (B-2) Texans by looking at the cast of Dallas (D-2) is similar to profiling Islamic terrorists (C-1) by looking at the cast of Dallas (D-1).
When presenting an analogy it’s helpful if the analogy is accurate. The more accurate, the better. That is why I categorized it as “ham-handed”.
Please see bottom of page for response to the above five posts.
I have touched on this. Evidently, not with the detail you would prefer. So be it. Please review.
I have also explained that I am NOT a law enforcement expert, never mind one on profiling. To attempt to have a position discounted because someone cannot offer the detail that would be required and expected of true experts is a cheap debating trick. It’s like having an abortion debate with someone (from either side) and attempting to invalidate their position because they do not know the technical science surrounding the moment of conception. Or like attempting to discount a position on how to help end poverty because someone is not an economist. Cheap. Continue if you like. I expect that you will.
Actually, I’m sure it’s more than half. And I have not ignored them all. Check my posts, Sherlock. I have not even ignored you. I answered you. And then I expanded on my answer when you asked. You don’t like my answer because it doesn’t fit into your little game, too bad. Your statement is a lie.
Note: the honorable thing for you to do now would be to apologize.
I’m sorry, maybe I assumed to much of you. Most humans have the ability to look at particular instances and make reasonable generalizations. Who knows, maybe some of the people involved in law enforcement suffer from the same deficiency. So I now–and God knows, not a moment too late–propose an Official Test for those wishing to serve in ANY law enforcement capacity, so they’ll be up to the task in those cases where “profiling” might be used.
The Official Test: If, after studying this page Poodle Photos Pictures Poodles for ten minutes, and then studyiing this page Golden Retriever Photos Pictures Golden Retrievers for another ten minutes, the testee cannot discern Poodles from Golden Retrievers with an accuracy of 99%, they should not–repeat, should NOT–be allowed to participate in any profiling activities.
After you test yourself with the Official Test above, and repeat it until you pass with a 99% success rate, I think you’ll have no difficulty rereading my answer again and feeling more comfortable with it.
I am relieved that you pointed out this potential problem I will forward to DHS immediately. Your country thanks you for this valuable service in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
I don’t think I mischaracterized it; I pointed out its fatal flaw. I realize you have put in the disclaimer that it should only be used if it is effective, holding only that we should not deny the security forces a tool if they need it. However, to me that seems to be about the same as saying we should not prevent carpenters from using marshmallow hammers if they can find a use for them. If we are not going to pull out of line every young male Mizrahim Jew, Greek, Sicilian, Latin American, and swarthy (or deeply tanned) European or North American, just what are we supposed to be doing with this great aid to detection? How does it work? (And if we are spending the effort to pull all those people out of line for more thorough checks, how many girlfriends, blondes, blacks, and East Asians are going to pass through security because the security people are wasting their time looking at skin color and nose shape rather than activity?)
Just what are security people supposed to do when they “profile” by apparent (and misleading) ethnicity?
What examples have I given that were ridiculous? Can you tell me the difference (or find a photo to help me distinguish between) the people I used in my examples and the people you think might be identified by profiling?
OTOH, you have provided a ridiculous example (I hope in jest) with your comparison of retrievers and poodles. A better example would be to ask for a test between staffies and pit bulls (taking into consideration that I have had my brindle Boxer identified as a pit bull on several occasions and that in the real world not every dog’s ears get clipped).
Actually, that is pretty much what was proposed:
In other words, the assemblyman was going to substitute racial profiling for random. No mention of a suite of tools. No suggestion that they actually attempt to identify persons likely to take a bomb into a subway, simply limiting the people who would be randomly searched to a perceived ethnic group. This means that they would have to stop every perceived Middle Easterner, thus requiring massive police hiring to handle the number of men they would need to stop, or limiting their random searches to perceived Middle Eastern men, thus telling the bombers in advance to hand their bombs to their fair-haired or female accomplices.
In other words, the proposal made no suggestion to increase the quality or effectiveness of the searches, but did target some vaguely identified group of people who could not easily be correctly identified.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
You are ignoring the two very specific problems I had with your posts. You are just going into a rehash of some of the positions stated. I can only assume now that you are doing it intentionally. And while I wouldn’t be surprised to see such tactics from some posters, I am surprised and disappointed to get it from a Moderator.
I simply–three times now–politely pointed out that you mischaracterized my position. I pointed out the specific offending sentences and provided my rationale. This will be my final attempt:
Do you think that my position is accurately portrayed by the following two statements?
If so, please show where I advocated profiling even if it didn’t result in a small pool of suspects.
By the way, these were the two “ridiculous” examples I was referriing to. Maybe I should have said something to the effect “…the examples you offered to show how ridiculous profiling can be”.
Then again, I haven’t seen your test score. Maybe you actually have a Pit Bull.
I’m not sure what your position is. I don’t think you are weaseling, but you jumped in after I responded to MadSam’s rather silly claim and I don’t see why you are so intent on defending his position (even if he did borrow his example from one of your posts).
My only contention is that ethnic profiling is worthless. I await any post describing a way in which it would work. If we stop everyone who fits the “profile,” we wind up including large numbers of people who are not even part of the group we claim to be seeking and the time and effort spent detracts from our ability to look for people who are actual evildoers but do not meet our preconceived ideas. If we are only stopping some of the people who meet that profile, we still are including people whom we claim to not be targeting while letting others go by: why waste our time on a hit-and-miss process that simply eliminates everyone else who might actually be planning to do evil deeds.
Emma was definitely a Boxer, neither a Staffie nor a Pit Bull. Her successor is not mistaken for the other breeds, but she is not brindle.
I’ll concede this, if you like: I agree, you do not seem to advocate profiling except under impossible conditions.
tomndebb’s point with the photo is well made. Just one single photo, a profile with a target pool of 1, will result in thousands of false positives if handed out to transport networks nationwide. How much broader a profile is required to match “male Islamic terrorists between the ages of 17 and 40”? Can you suggest some criteria that will result in a small group of search candidates, can be easily applied by security staff to a travelling crowd of thousands upon thousands of people, and yet will still accurately select terrorists? I strongly doubt it.
You appear to be saying “I support profiling if we can pick out more or less only the terrorists and very few others.” Well, that’s fine as far as it goes, but no-one on earth has demonstrated how such a magical feat is supposed to be performed. Can you?
Walk down the aisle of an airplane from one end to another. Your job would be to select 10 people who you think would be more probably than not Middle Easteners, Indian/Pakstani/Indonesian/Afghans. You may be wrong on a few and you may have missed a few…but there are at least 200 or more passengers on board who do not fit the bill.
Do you, tomndebb, DNC believe that this would be a totally random selection? If you believe you would not be able to do this with some success, I would totally disagree with you. I certainly am not saying that any of the ten would be terrorists.
Well, we might pick 10, successfully, on a plane originating in Boston or Cleveland. Of course, a flight originating in Detroit will produce 30 or 40 “possibles” rather than 10–all of whom are probably nice American folks on business or pleasure trips. And in LA or Houston or Miami, the error rate is going to be much higher.
Regardless, what do you propose to do with that information? Anyone you missed has a green light to go ahead and commit an atrocity. Meanwhile, you have wasted time looking at complexion and facial features when you should have been looking at behavior, documentation, or possessions.
The Irish girlfriend who actually carried a bomb was just missed among your 200 people that you are ignoring. The guys with Jamaican or Puerto Rican ancestry who have been linked to various activities in the US and the UK have just been placed among the 200 people that you are not bothering to check.
It is a meaningless waste of time that distracts from relevant activities.
What are you going to do with this information?, you ask. When bomb materials or weapons are located that would be a clue as to terrorists preparing to commit an atrocity, racial profiling of the people mentioned above to investigate would IMO provide more information than any random selection of people…You mentioned an exception to racial profiling with the Irish girlfriend. If you can demonstrate that as many people like her vis a vis the cultures I mentioned above who have been terrorists associated with the destruction of the US, UK, and Israel…I will do an immediate 180 degree alteration of my opinion.
Wait a minute. You have already found the bomb materials, and your only choices are randomly asking people if they know anything about them or picking up a smaller group of people (but still randomly selected) to ask whether they know something about it?
Why not skip the step of wandering around looking for suspicious people to investigate and actually use normal detective methods to track down who had access to the location where the materials were found?
If you find bomb materials in Del Ray Michigan, are you going to search Del Ray and Dearborn and drive up and down the streets picking up every male who “looks” Arab? All several thousands of them? Between the outraged innocents and the stonewalling guilty (if they happen to be caught in the sweep), what are the odds that you will actually gain anything by this process? (And, of course, the Middle Eastern immigrant community in Dearborn is over 20 years old, so you really need to expand your sweep to western Detroit, Dearborn Heights, Wayne, Oakwood, and surrounding communities, meaning that you are really stretching your security forces.) And while you have dozens (hundreds?) of personnel devoted to this sweep, how many people have you diverted from good police work?
You have still failed to demonstrate an actual scenario where looking at faces does anything more than distract from necessary efforts. Please provide a realistic scenario that demonstrates a legitimate use of ethnic profiling that would not be better handled by behavioral profiling or standard police investigation.
Ah, and there you make your mistake! Terrorism in the UK, you left in terrorism in the UK. You were supposed to limit it to the US, so that all the Irish terrorists wouldn’t fit into your profile.
Do you think an entreprising doper with time on his hands won’t be able to produce ample evidence of white, Irish terrorists perpetrating terror in the UK?
Somebody certainly will. I can’t wait to come back to this thread tomorrow and read about it.
Actually, as long as the current process in Northern Ireland continues, even in fits and starts, and the IRA, UDF, UDA, LVF, UFF, Irish-TLA-of-your-choice does not decide to destroy the whole process, I think we are moving away from the likelihood of more inter-island terrorism and I would not want to get sidetracked with that issue.
