Profiling is what you described. Racial profiling is about profiling based on race.
I agree that other elements are used in reality, but it is still discriminatory to use race as an element if the vast majority of that group pose no threat and are simply victims of the system.
Seriously. My parents are from India. I’m a Hindu, and my first name and last name are typical Hindu names. I have no criminal record. Am I supposed to be yanked out of line for enhanced pat downs while all the white people get to go through? F*ck that.
I’m not going to support profiling based solely on religion or ethnicity in any case, because I believe it to be unconstitutional. I also don’t think it’s practical or will capture security threats properly. If someone wants to advocate a system that includes a number of behavioral factors, I’m willing to think about it, but pure racial or religious profiling is not something I will support.
The first bit of evidence is the relative security of El Al. They have been very specific targets for many years and have done relatively well, even back in the hijacking days. From Wikipedia:
" El Al security procedures require that all passengers be interviewed individually prior to boarding, allowing El Al staff to identify possible security threats. Passengers will be asked questions about where they are coming from, the reason for their trip, their job or occupation, and whether they have packed their bags themselves. The likelihood of potential terrorists remaining calm under such questioning is believed to be low."
Passengers with particular backgrounds are selected for further screening.
The second bit of evidence is much more anecdotal. Those of us who are frequent flyers are typically amused (or not) at the comical efforts of TSA in their efforts to randomly screen and avoid profiling. On the one hand, for example, airport workers are given at best a cursory screen. We see farcical examples of time wasted on folks who, well, aren’t a threat. There is a perfectly legitimate concern that TSA’s non-discriminatory efforts prevent a focus on the profile that is currently threatening our airplanes.
No system is perfect. But resources to screen everyone are limited, and not focusing the resources we have more carefully obviously results in screening people who are not threats at the cost of screening others less carefully.
I get it that it’s unfair. But if TSA gets evidence that a white supremacy group has decided to take down an airplane to make a statement, I don’t want them focusing on Gujarati’s that week. I want them pulling me out of line, even if I have nothing to do with white supremacists. And if I do have a white supremacy background and they have intelligence that white supremacists are trying to pull something off, I want the third degree.
And since Gujaratis have yet to take down an American airplane, the TSA shouldn’t focus on Gujaratis either, until such time as a credible Gujarati threat surfaces. Is that your view?
And since Hindus haven’t committed a terrorist attack in the US, the TSA shouldn’t be focused on me either (until such time as a credible Hindu attack threat surfaces). Is that your view?
You’re right that BEHAVIORAL profiling is what’s needed, not RACIAL profiling. 1 question though: do you believe that Al Qaeda will find Christians to hijack planes as easily as they find Muslims?
You do realize that people, even Christians, can and do convert to Islam?
Instead of posing questions, why don’t you try answering the question I asked earlier. What is the concrete criteria that you are going to use to identify who you want to screen at the airport?
Again it’s not a question of race. There are white Muslims from Bosnia and Albania (they even formed Nazi SS units during World War II!) One of these people could easily be recruited by Al Qaeda and get through this proposed profiling easily, especially if he was raised in America and changed his name.
YES I DO REALIZE PEOPLE CONVERT!!! :rolleyes: Someone mentioned up thread that profiling should begin before people even enter the airport. For foreigners entering the US, I’d look at their origin point, and if they’re from a nation considered hostile (Iran, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, among others) to the US, I’d deny their ticket. In regard to domestic travel, I’d analyze their backround (YES, including religion!), any foreign ties they may have, etc.
Now, I understand if this makes people uncomfortable, but WE ARE AT WAR!, and we can’t just drop trow, and take it!
Hey, you know what? We’re already doing this. That’s why they have things like the TIDES list, which was reference up thread. That’s an attempt to use intelligence gathering techniques and behavioral techniques to flag suspected security threats. If you have specific ways in which that type of program can be improved or altered, then lay it out.
Oh, please. You don’t even understand who we’re at war with, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t really pay much attention to your security assessments.
Ditto. I get “randomly” patted down every goddamn time. Bout time the rest of you had to go through it too.
There’s also the upcoming Secure Flight program (which I believe is not operational yet). ETA: This is in reference to identifying security threats before they show up at the airport.
I guess the Bush family won’t be having visitors for Thanksgiving this year then. (You do know Saudi Arabia is a US ally, yes? Many businesspeople and dignitaries flying in from there? And their families. And Arab-Americans and their families?)
Rather than hysterical all-caps assertions that are factually incorrect, etv78, digest what some of us have been saying in this thread. The left and the right aren’t even that far apart: we all agree that there should be forms of screening, just disagree on what the screening criteria should be.
I do still want to know from LonesomePolecat whether people who aren’t deemed threatening, by his criteria, should evade baseline security measures. If not, what does he propose those baseline security measures should be?
Urgh. I missed the part about denying a ticket.
jjim, the 19 hijackers were Saudi!
No, really!? I thought they were Belgian.
The clue I’m asking you to get is that, while the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, the thousands of Saudis who fly this route every day, for example, aren’t hijackers.
If you ban all Saudi nationals from entering the US, how is the US going to do business with Saudi Arabia?
“Sorry guy, we can’t hold hands any more, you’re barred.”
What you seem to be painfully unaware of is that the terms Muslim, Al Queda and Arab are not interchangeable. The majority of the world’s Muslim population is not Arab. Furthermore, Al Queda has shown that is has operational capacity in a number of non-Arab countries, both Muslim majority (Indonesia, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc.) and countries without a Muslim majority (France, the US, India, Thailand, etc.). Furthermore, Al Queda has shown numerous times that it can recruit non-Muslims or recently converted Muslims to their cause and that it can recruit non-Arabs to their cause, and they can do this in both Arab and non-Arab countries (and they have done so in the US).
Repeating the fact that the hijackers were Saudi doesn’t do anything to tell us what the actual security threat is. If Al Queda is the threat you are worried about, then you should be looking at what their operational and recruiting capacity is. You should be examining what their previous strategy has been in recruitment and who exactly they have deployed in their attacks. But you’re not interested in doing that at all. You simply want to chant the words “Arab” or “Saudi” as if those are meaningful ways to designate the security threat posed by Al Queda.
You started this thread stating that the government wasn’t doing something it should be doing solely because of “political correctness.” So far, the only concrete thing you’ve given us that the government should change is that they should start banning people from entry from certain designated foreign countries. Well, let me assure you that Saudis will never be banned from entering the US, and it’s not because of political correctness. The Saudis are huge investors in the US economy, they own major chunks of large multi-national corporations (such as Citibank), and numerous well-connected US firms do major business in Saudi Arabia.
And as far as I can tell, you have provided no concrete changes for the government in the area of domestic travel. So, I guess we’re stuck with the machines and the groping.
While YOU are able to make the distinction between Muslim/Arab and Al Queda, do you believe the AVERAGE American does? :rolleyes: One solution I’ve seen offered, on this board, in fact: Scanners that would detonate any explosives. While it’s far from perfect, it’s better than nothing! (certainly better than a stranger getting to 3rd base with you)
We’re talking about what the actual security threat here is and how to screen for it. If you don’t want to understand the security threat, then stop lecturing people about what to do at the airports. I’m certainly not going to base a security analysis on the ideas of someone who can’t be bothered to learn about Al Queda.:rolleyes:
I don’t even know what this means. It sounds like you are advocating detonating explosives in the middle of the screening line, which admittedly, given your previous posting in this thread doesn’t sound like a big stretch for you, but why don’t you clarify.
I’m confused about the point you are trying to make here. You are the one advocating for racial profiling, and you admit the average American can’t make distinctions. Wouldn’t that imply it’s a bad idea to encourage the average American TSA agent to pull people aside based on their race?
There are some hard realities to face here that do not necessarily make comfortable thinking for those of us of a liberal outlook.
Imagine if we only ever screened white, christian females aged 40-65. Alternatively, that we only screened darker skinned male muslims of 20-40.
If we were to do this tomorrow, which scenario would make things easier for the terrorists and so air travel more dangerous?
Of course we would not do either, for a myriad of reasons but mainly because to have a single transparent means of selecting for screening merely plays in the hands of those that want to kill. And the terrorists are clearly not stupid, their tactics will change to attack any security weakness that they see.
The key to me seems to be then, that we don’t let them see what we know or what we are doing. The EL-AL model or similar is the way to go. The profiling is done ahead of the screening line and threats negated before they even get in the building.
But let’s not be coy about this, extreme Islamist ideology does indeed want to destroy non-believers. That is where is the danger lies and that is where the bulk of our efforts needs to be concentrated. As a result of that, greater scrutiny will be placed on those members of communities that present the current threat.
That does mean that more muslim and darker skinned people are likely to be targeted for investigation. We should be prepared to accept that.
But of course that threat changes, as does the strategy of the terrorists. The hardest task for the security forces is to be proactive and plug the weaknesses that the terrorist seek to exploit.
Blindly pulling brown people out of a line doesn’t do that, only deeper screening and behavioural profiling will do the trick.
One other benefit of that is that the burden of work and hassle is taken away from the airport security checks and make life a little easier for those of us whose main concern is that AA haven’t run out of coconut shrimp.