Profiling Muslims e-mail

[Lantern]

If religion is an important data point in the profiling exercise it’s religious profiling. If race is an important data point it’s racial profiling. And so on.The different types of profiling are not mutually exclusive. If religion isn’t an important data point it makes sense to exclude it since the costs of including it are certainly significant.

And the DHS doesn’t remotely have the ability to keep track of the religious affiliations of potentially hundreds of millions of people around the world who might want to enter the US. It would be reduced to crude methods like creating a database of Muslim names which could be easily gotten around by determined terrorists rendering the whole exercise worse than useless. You don’t have to be a mastermind to change your name or get a fake passport.

[Kimstu]

@mswas

The complete elimination of a terrorist threat is not a valid criteria for judging security methods.

I wasn’t complaining that your proposal didn’t completely eliminate a terrorist threat, which as you note is an unrealistic objective.

Rather, I was complaining that by your own admission, your proposal in some ways increases a terrorist threat, by introducing a weak point into current security procedures that can be exploited by terrorist groups.

@mswas

@Kimstu

The type of intelligence gathering that you’re talking about (creating detailed profiles on individuals) depends heavily not only on signals intelligence but also on its counterpart called human intelligence or HUMINT, namely, collecting data by interpersonal contact. There’s absolutely no valid reason to restrict a profile database to data gathered only by signals intelligence.

We’re not talking about ‘restricting’ data. This is a straw man. I am talking simply about using signals intelligence to build profiles on passengers in real time. Where you get this ludicrous idea that this somehow tosses out Human Intelligence as a relevant factor makes no sense. The SigInt profile alerts the HumInt agents at the airport to the people who fit the profile to a certain degree. It’s a combination of the two. The personalized screening process occurs after SigInt has escalated to HumInt

You’re still completely missing the point. Apparently the word “restrict” hit your hot button and you forgot to read for comprehension, thus failing to realize that I wasn’t still referring to the restriction of particular screening procedures to particular groups.

SigInt just means intelligence gathering by interception and analysis of electronic signals from various devices used for communications, broadcasting, or surveillance. It’s meaningless to talk about SigInt “escalating” to HumInt. HumInt is just a different type of intelligence-gathering technique which involves interpersonal communication.

Any viable profile database will be built from data collected both by SigInt means (for instance, recordings of radio broadcasts or tapped phone conversations) and by HumInt means (for instance, reports from undercover agents infiltrating suspect groups).

What you are incorrectly describing as SigInt seems to be just the real-time automated electronic collating of profile data previously obtained from a variety of sources by a variety of methods, both HumInt and SigInt. The automated data collating processes that merely construct the profile from already acquired data are not the same thing as SigInt.

[Skylark]

@ivan_astikov

Well, perhaps you can point to a few of these exceptions to the muslim rule, and we can add them to our database? Remember, we are talking about people who have tried to set off an explosive device on a plane. The only group doing this are certain extremists; until extremists from other sectors of the population pop up, surely it is best to focus our efforts on specific groups?

There ARE extremists from other sectors of the population. Muslim, Christian, white, black, brown, the US has all kinds. People just don’t pay attention.

@Revenant_Threshold

I think it was just a definitional issue. How do you know? We’d have to look at the data to know that. That’s true, but we do need to enter that information into computers - and perhaps more costly so far as time and resources go, we need to find that information in the first place and interpret it.

Two (widely published) books come to mind which have done this. Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century and Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. The first is by the guy who did Understanding Terror Networks. In both books, the authors compile data on every documented instance of Islamic terrorism or suicide bombings (the two are not the same), spit into a database, and sift through and see what they find. I highly recommend both of these.

In Dying to Win, one thing the author makes clear early on is the biggest utilizer of suicide bombings isn’t a Muslim group at all, but the Tamil Tigers, who are a secular Marxist organization.

@Lantern

Aside from the fact as pointed out that US Arabs aren’t likely to be Muslims how would the government get data on who is Arab or not?

The Census? Heh. By law the Census can’t share its information with other government agencies, and Arabs are counted as White anyway. Natch.
Also the underwear guy was Nigerian. The shoe bomber was half-Brit half-Jamaican (as already pointed out by jjimm upthread). One of the guys in the 2006 Toronto plot was Somalian; the group including Pakistanis and Caribbeans. One of the guys in the Glasgow airport attack was Indian. Almost everybody in Abu Sayyaf is Moro (southern Philippines). Timothy McVeigh was white. None of these people are Arab.

[mswas]

@Kimstu

I wasn’t complaining that your proposal didn’t completely eliminate a terrorist threat, which as you note is an unrealistic objective.

Rather, I was complaining that by your own admission, your proposal in some ways increases a terrorist threat, by introducing a weak point into current security procedures that can be exploited by terrorist groups.

I admitted no such thing. I said profiling could replace the security theater that we currently use that doesn’t keep us safer in any way. The net result is that we’d be much safer than we are now, and we’d actually be subject to less invasive security culture. Safety AND freedom would be increased, even for Muslims.

You’re still completely missing the point. Apparently the word “restrict” hit your hot button and you forgot to read for comprehension, thus failing to realize that I wasn’t still referring to the restriction of particular screening procedures to particular groups.

SigInt just means intelligence gathering by interception and analysis of electronic signals from various devices used for communications, broadcasting, or surveillance. It’s meaningless to talk about SigInt “escalating” to HumInt. HumInt is just a different type of intelligence-gathering technique which involves interpersonal communication.

I don’t think I am the one who is not reading for comprehension. I was talking about how the analytic profile can flag someone who has a high correlation to the terrorist profile and by ‘escalate’ I meant that person gets taken aside for a more personalized approach where HumInt works to verify whether or not the SigInt got an appropriate hit. If it didn’t then the person goes along their merry way, maybe grumbling, but they are let go anyway.

Any viable profile database will be built from data collected both by SigInt means (for instance, recordings of radio broadcasts or tapped phone conversations) and by HumInt means (for instance, reports from undercover agents infiltrating suspect groups).

Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to encourage this straw man by focusing on SigInt in terms of the analytics.

What you are incorrectly describing as SigInt seems to be just the real-time automated electronic collating of profile data previously obtained from a variety of sources by a variety of methods, both HumInt and SigInt. The automated data collating processes that merely construct the profile from already acquired data are not the same thing as SigInt.

The data is acquired by SigInt AND HumInt. I understand your point. So if I say that I understand your point, can we drop the pedantry where you made a clarification but didn’t explain anything I didn’t know? Or do we need to go into more of this?

[mswas]

@Lantern

If religion is an important data point in the profiling exercise it’s religious profiling. If race is an important data point it’s racial profiling. And so on.The different types of profiling are not mutually exclusive. If religion isn’t an important data point it makes sense to exclude it since the costs of including it are certainly significant.

And if Shoe-size is important it’s Shoe profiling. I get it.

[mswas]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Well, that stands to reason. No chance that terrorists could gain control of four jetliners with nothing more dangerous than office supplies and navigate them to specific coordinates and very specific altitudes unaided.

Or build bombs out of common household materials.

Nope, bunch of incompetents, those terrorists.

Getting around algorithms on supercomputers is a bit more advanced than following a recipe. Especially if the algorithms are kept classified.

[Skylark]

mswas, may I ask what, if applicable, experience you have in this field? Job experience, training, education, degrees held, books read…?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@mswas

Getting around algorithms on supercomputers is a bit more advanced than following a recipe. Especially if the algorithms are kept classified.

You’re starting to sound like a kid being told that Santa Claus isn’t real and refusing to accept it.

Neither the NSA nor anyone else can come up with algorithms to predict essentially random events, at least not without raw data. The raw data does not exist.

[Kimstu]

@mswas

I said profiling could replace the security theater that we currently use that doesn’t keep us safer in any way. The net result is that we’d be much safer than we are now, and we’d actually be subject to less invasive security culture.

You keep asserting this but not making any convincing arguments for it. If you replace all routine and random security screening with scrutiny depending on matches to a particular high-risk profile, then you’ve introduced a weak spot. Terror organizations can simply focus on recruiting minions who don’t match the high-risk profile, and you’ve made their job easy for them.

@mswas

Israel DOES profile on whether or not someone is a Muslim and El Al is one of the safest airlines in the world.

If you imagine that high-security airlines like El Al depend for their safety record on passenger profiling instead of on rigorous and exhaustive routine screening for ALL passengers, you’re completely kidding yourself:

Passengers are asked to report three hours before departure. […] Inside the terminal, passengers and their baggage are checked by a trained team. 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. […] At the check-in counter the passengers’ passports and tickets are closely examined. A ticket without a sticker from the security checkers will not be accepted.

Security the El Al way means replacing routine shoe checks with an individual personal interrogation for every passenger and a three-hour wait in the airport. I’ve got nothing to say against it if that’s how they feel it needs to be done, but I don’t think you’re going to get very far with the claim that most passengers would find an El-Al-type “security culture” less inconvenient or “invasive” than the current US procedures.

@mswas

I was talking about how the analytic profile can flag someone who has a high correlation to the terrorist profile and by ‘escalate’ I meant that person gets taken aside for a more personalized approach where HumInt works to verify whether or not the SigInt got an appropriate hit.

Yes, I got the general gist of what you were trying to say, I was just pointing out to you that you were using the terms incorrectly. “SigInt” has a specific meaning in the context of intelligence gathering: it doesn’t just mean “using a computer to process data in a database”, which seems to be how you’re trying to use the term.

@mswas

The data is acquired by SigInt AND HumInt. I understand your point. So if I say that I understand your point, can we drop the pedantry where you made a clarification but didn’t explain anything I didn’t know?

You have an odd way of spelling “Thanks Kimstu, I was using those technical terms very sloppily and I appreciate your making the effort to clarify the meaning so it wouldn’t be so confusing.” However, you’re welcome anyway.

[ivan_astikov]

So, have we agreed that at this point in time muslims are more likely to have adherents extremist enough to want to blow up a plane, it’s just that we can’t exactly determine who these muslims are?

Well, I’ve noticed the Bible being used in courts of law a lot, and thought maybe the Koran could be used at airports. Everyone who is boarding the plane has to hold the Holy Book and swear by Allah they are not going to blow anything up.

If they act a bit nervous or offended, whip them away for the rubber glove treatment.

[Revenant_Threshold]

Yeah, I can’t imagine anyone innocent being offended by being asked to swear in such a manner. Most certainly there would be no problem with actual potential terrorists being able to swear with no apparent or actual difficulty.

Hell, i’d be offended, and i’m not Muslim.

[Skylark]

@ivan_astikov

So, have we agreed that at this point in time muslims are more likely to have adherents extremist enough to want to blow up a plane, it’s just that we can’t exactly determine who these muslims are?

Well, I’ve noticed the Bible being used in courts of law a lot, and thought maybe the Koran could be used at airports. Everyone who is boarding the plane has to hold the Holy Book and swear by Allah they are not going to blow anything up.

If they act a bit nervous or offended, whip them away for the rubber glove treatment.

Many of those terrorists subscribe to the doctrine of taqiyya, wherein it’s okay to lie, even about your religion, in order to protect the faith (stay with me here). It’s primarily known as a Shia thing, from when Shia were heavily persecuted, but it’s been really embraced by Sunni groups like Al Qaeda.

Takfir wal-Hijra:

Members of the group are not bound by the usual religious constraints. They adopt non-Islamic appearances such as shaving their beard and wearing a tie in order to blend into crowds and make themselves hard to detect even to other Muslims. They believe that the ends justify any means and, that killing other Muslims can be justified in their cause and that Western society is heathen and it is their duty to destroy it.
…
The group’s warriors are allowed to practice something akin to taqiyya. This means they can disguise their true principles for protection of their own faith. This allows them to blend in with Western society and also to disobey all rules of their form of Islam for the goal of destroying Western civilisation from within. According to this ideology, the warriors will be martyrs in Paradise after death.

Takfir wal-Hijra’s ideology is so extreme that in 1996 the group plotted to assassinate Osama bin Laden, supposedly for being insufficiently radical. Many also considered the Taliban movement in Afghanistan to be unbelievers.

Make them step on a Koran? Okay. Eat bacon? Delicious. Drink alcohol? Pour it on. Mosque attendance as a data point? Just have your terrorist plots hatched at a strip club instead. Swear by God not to blow anything up? If at the end of the day you “serve” God by blowing up the plane, then God will forgive you, and the ends justify the means.

So in summary, most of these supposedly Smart, Simple, Fast, Easy security methods against terrorists are going to be pretty ineffective. If anything I’d keep my watchful eye on the guidos.