Politics: J'accuse!

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
But you keep declaring that "we should investigate all muslims" --

I never said that and said just the opposite. I have been saying over and over again that this is about finite resources.

What I have been saying is that the FBI agent in Pheonix alerted the FBI to Arab males in flight school and journalists have reported that the FBI didn't have the resources to investigate all 200,000 flight schools students and felt that it would be racial profiling to limit the investigation to Arab males. So fear of racial profiling was one reason that they didn't investigate the Arab males in flight schools. This was reported by journalists to have come from former FBI agents.

I never said what you are saying I said. I said just the opposite - I said this is about best focusing your limited resources in a way that is most likely to keep us safe.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Not Bob

And will our grandchildren have the same reaction to this sort of thing as we now have to Japanese internment camps? Someone (burger?) pointed out the Korematsu decision already. The same arguments about group suspiscion were made in the 1940s, too.

Substantive punishment versus inconvenient investigation. My grandchildren will be bitch-slapped iand beat like red-headed stepchildrenf they ever equate the two.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Seriously, I guess that the point is that profiling solely on the basis of skin color, or religion, or whatever, can lead very easily into mistreatment. Extra scrutiny is one thing (I got it recently, too -- I think that it is because I really am an evil-looking person, but I'll try to convince myself that I looked like a naif). Singling out a dark-skinned passenger without paying attention to other factors that may be relevant (where is she from? how did he pay for his ticket? did they check bags?) just seems like an ineffective anti-terrorism tactic.

This is an excellent point. I should get searched every time I travel for business (seriously, not sarcastically) -- male, age 25-35, travelling alone with light baggage on a ticket purchased generally less than 72 hours in advance, arriving to the baggage check and/or gate at the last minute (I always seem to run late for flights). That's a profile. For a while, I thought they actually were applying this type of profiling, but I guess I either just got unlucky or like Not Bob, I'm evil looking. I got picked out for extra scrutiny for something like 8 flights in a row, over a period of a couple of months. Haven't been searched thoroughly since, excepting that time I forgot to take my cell phone out of my pocket.

[dtb]

Originally posted by Not Bob
And will our grandchildren have the same reaction to this sort of thing as we now have to Japanese internment camps? Someone (burger?) pointed out the Korematsu decision already. The same arguments about group suspiscion were made in the 1940s, too.

Hard to say. I don't know what the basis for the round-up was (well, I know Pearl Harbor and all that, but was there anything else?) in those days, but in the present-day circumstances, the chart-toppers on the list of "Who Will Do Anything -- and I do Mean Anything -- to Strike Against American Interests" are muslims. Who is bombing US embassies? It's not the IRA. Who had plans to bomb LAX? Not ETA. What group has "cells" all over the US (a plot was uncovered several months ago in upstate NY involving muslim teenagers -- sons of muslim immigrants) plotting to plant bombs/kill people randomly? Not the Shining Path.

So, I don't know how analagous the situations are. Were there numerous examples of Japanese in the US trying to harm us? I know I read not long ago about INS really cracking down on those who have overstayed their visas, and those who are here on student visas but have never enrolled in school, and I think the focus was on muslims/Arabs. I don't see anything wrong with that, given that their leaders have EXPRESSLY ADVOCATED doing harm to America and Americans whenever and wherever they can, and the community has shown a willingness, some might even say eagerness to do so.

I know we're all enlightened intellectuals (ahem -- well, y'all are), but it's no joke. I recognize that an anecdote does not evidence make, but this was a reality slap in the face for me the other day: in a taxi cab, the Arab (could tell from the name) driver was annoyed by a person walking too slowly in the crosswalk, and decided that the most virulent epithet he would fling at this fellow was "Jew!" I daresay his attitude is not unique. So, even for Arabs in this country, driving cabs and "minding their own bees wax" there is real hatred that, within that community, is encouraged (or at the very least, not discouraged.)

That last paragraph is not proof of anything, I know. However, I don't think that attitude is an isolated one, and don't think it's that big a leap from "Jews" to "Americans" -- one woman's opinion.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Republican-pleaser.

Hey, if you want to pee on one, you have to get close. A little compromise may be in order.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Not Me
What I have been saying is that the FBI agent in Pheonix alerted the FBI to Arab males in flight school and journalists have reported that the FBI didn't have the resources to investigate all 200,000 flight schools students and felt that it would be racial profiling to limit the investigation to Arab males. So fear of racial profiling was one reason that they didn't investigate the Arab males in flight schools. This was reported by journalists to have come from former FBI agents.

And I've agreed with you that given the warnings, they should have done the investigation.

I never said what you are saying I said. I said just the opposite - I said this is about best focusing your limited resources in a way that is most likely to keep us safe.

Focus them how? You say things like "So focus on muslims and you get the National Guard guy." Are you limiting that to "focus on muslims in flight school"? Or do you mean "all muslims"? Or do you mean "muslims who meet certain other criteria"? In which case, is the presence of those other criteria sufficient to support investigating non-muslims?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
What do you mean "pick up someone"? What bothers you about that? We're not talking about picking someone up and throwing them across the room, or picking someone up while simultaneously beating them with the Yellow Pages.

I personally think that some degree of profiling is necessary. This statement, though, reminds me of the slightly different point that part of the reason "pick[ing] up someone" bothers some people is that when pulling people aside for additional questioning, we often don't do this very well.

See, e.g., the problems with the no-fly lists. I think I recall hearing stories about lawsuits raised by some people who have names similar to (but different than) suspected terrorists*, and they get pulled over and questioned extensively every time they fly. They complain about being treated like criminals every time they want to travel. How true this is, I couldn't tell you, but I don't doubt that it really sucks if you want to go anywhere.

Gattigap


* Actually, I think there was one fellow who had an identical name to some miscellaneous badguy. The TSA told him he should change his name. Niiiiiiice.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by baltassoc
This is an excellent point. I should get searched every time I travel for business (seriously, not sarcastically) -- male, age 25-35, travelling alone with light baggage on a ticket purchased generally less than 72 hours in advance, arriving to the baggage check and/or gate at the last minute (I always seem to run late for flights). That's a profile.

If you've never seen the "drug-dealer" profiles, you fit them.

Unfortunately, so do 80% of other travellers. Which makes them a great way to show probable cause for a search, but not so great at picking out the drug dealers.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Gattigap
See, e.g., the problems with the no-fly lists. I think I recall hearing stories about lawsuits raised by some people who have names similar to (but different than) suspected terrorists*, and they get pulled over and questioned extensively every time they fly. They complain about being treated like criminals every time they want to travel. How true this is, I couldn't tell you, but I don't doubt that it really sucks if you want to go anywhere.

If you were a flight attendant and a guy named John bin Laden was on your flight, what would you do?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Not Me
The FBI should and did and does target the white supremist/militia/anti-one world order groups. They look for clues that someone belongs to a group like that as part of their investigations. Blacks aren't often found in those groups.

But you're not talking about the FBI. You're talking about airport security and traffic stops and border patrols, none of which are the purview of the FBI. Other than a random search, when was the last time you saw a WM with SH and a NRAS pulled over in those situations?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
And middle aged white guys who make sodium-cyanide bombs in East Texas. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1229/p02s01-usju.html

Men are so much likelier than women to commit terrorist acts. Or crimes, for that matter.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
And I've agreed with you that given the warnings, they should have done the investigation.

Everyone agrees on this, which is one way you can tell that the FBI was doing some CYA.

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me This issue has come up before, and I think its important not to equate "investigation", "interrogation" and "detention" as if all are always substantively equivalent.

I believe the original post (probably from a sock who's already moved on today to more exciting things) posited that after 9/11, nobody was against profiling of "swarthies" (Slave?) I think there continues to be a strong "anti-profiling of Arabs/Muslims" movement and the anti-profilers don't care whether the profiling is in the context of an investigation/interrogation/detention. They're just "against it". Like the people who are "against" world hunger.

I don't like to take a partisan view on this but...my instincts tell me that if , before 9/11, , investigators began heavy profiling of Arabs and Muslims based on the types of reports Rice was criticized for not having "all principals meetings" on, there'd have been much protest by both left wing and so-called "mainstream" democrats.

Bombs away.

Diane

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
If you were a flight attendant and a guy named John bin Laden was on your flight, what would you do?

A threesome in the lavatory? Oh, wait, wrong board.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
If you've never seen the "drug-dealer" profiles, you fit them.

Unfortunately, so do 80% of other travellers. Which makes them a great way to show probable cause for a search, but not so great at picking out the drug dealers.

http://www.cato.org/realaudio/drugwar/papers/duke.html

"Almost as offensive as relying on racial characteristics in a profile to justify searches or seizures is permitting the trivial and subjective profile characteristics to count as "reasonable" or "articulable" suspicion. Federal Circuit Judge Warren Ferguson observed that the DEA's profiles have a "chameleon-like way of adapting to any particular set of observations."16 In one case, a suspicious circumstance (profile characteristic) was deplaning first.17 In another, it was deplaning last.18 In a third, it was deplaning in the middle.19 A one-way ticket was said to be a suspicious circumstance in one case;20 a round-trip ticket was suspicious in another.21 Taking a non-stop flight was suspicious in one case,22 while changing planes was suspicious in another.23 Traveling alone fit a profile in one case,24 having a companion did so in another.25 Behaving nervously was a tip-off in one case,26 acting calmly was the tip-off in another.27

As even their users admit, the profiles are self-fulfilling. If the profiles are based on who is searched and found guilty, the guilty will necessarily fit the profiles. The DEA claims to catch 3,000 or more drug violators through the profiles,28 but no records are kept of how many people are hassled, detained or searched to produce the 3,000. Amazingly, the DEA keeps no records of the failures of the profile system."

Your analogy to drug profiling is apt. It's easy to say "Arab in a flight school" now. Prior to 9/11, that would not have fit any profile. Suppose the next attack uses a car, do we start profiling Arabs in automobiles?