I am in favor of racial profiling onlyif the law enforcement officials are paid $5.75 an hour. Why pay more when they are doing what a fast food employee can do?
You get what you pay for.
5.75 got is 4 planes hijacked, 2 skyscrapers imploded, the pentagon hit, and ~3000 Americans killed.
Tell that to the Jews. They started profiling a long time ago and then the Palestinians changed their MO.
I can't believe that all of you claiming that profiling will be effective. Those behind these types of attacks are not your common criminal that is holding up a liquor store or 7-11. These are highly educated individuals that are having their strings pulled by even more educated individuals. It is a chess match. If we start profiling, they will change up their methods and do something different. It is that simple. As evidenced by the, for lack of a better way of saying it, success of their operations, they have been very effective in counter-attacking.
We have no real idea how many plots have been foiled by profilling. The only source of information we see are our failures.
The Israelis live in a land where the general population is Arab. Until the United States sees this phenomina or blond hair blue eyed swedes start detonating themselves. I think profilling is a better alternative to random searches of grandma. Searching granny is a waste of time and resources.
Exactly,
We need smart and well paid officials, who do not rely on primitive tool like profiling, which is destined to fail. I am afraid that most people who will suffer will be South American/Hispanic and Africans. Not every muslim is named Ahmed or Muhammad, infact I have an Omar in my office who is Mexican. Even Jews are going to suffer because of their looks and names unless someone can come up with a tool that can correctly identify a Muslim, who is not Hispanic, African or Jewish.
Religious profiling would be far more effective. Islam is a world religion that knows no national or racial boundaries. If we were to concentrate our efforts in policing the mosques city to city, state to state, we'd find the terrorists. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
by all means tell us the better alternative?
I am still failing to see how stopping granny and letting akbar through is an effective measure to search and deter terrorism.
Racial profiling is bad security. Forget the ethical implications for a moment, and simply concentrate on how exactly racial profiling improves our security...or not. And don't take my word for it, I'm just some guy on the internet. But really think about it, this isn't some great mystery you need to trust your leaders on, it's all pretty basic logic.
The argument goes something like this: applying the same security measures to two people, one Middle Eastern and the other not, is stupid because the Middle Eastern person is more likely to be a threat than the other person. So the answer is to focus more on Middle Eastern people, because that way is more likely to nab threats.
There are two pretty obvious problems with this. Number one, and the more obvious one, is that while INCREASING security applied to those profiled, you are decreasing it for those the profile doesn't apply to. If "random" searches at the subway occur more often for people who match the profile, they occur less often for those that don't match the profile. As the genius assemblyman pointed out "they all look like this" producing pictures of Muslims on the watch list with facial hair and turbans. Anyone who doesn't see where I'm going with this, re-read that again until you do. A terrorist with half a brain will simply apply some quick and dirty measures to NOT fit the profile. Shave his facial hair, don't wear a turban, and dye his hair blonde. Maybe apply some makeup if he has darker skin so he looks less Middle Eastern. And not only is this very easy to do (and obvious to anyone who thinks about it for 2 seconds), it has made security far worse than it would have been previously, because with those simply steps it is far less likely that he will be searched than before. And this is totally ignoring the threat from terrorists who don't fit the assemblyman's stereotype.
Secondly, and perhaps less obviously, it weakens the benefits of having cops there in the first place by making them follow some rulebook instead of simpy going with their gut instincts and doing what we pay them to do. While they are patting down Abdul Abdul, some American looking guy could be acting all shifty, wearing a parka in July, or any of the dozens of other things that cops could be watching for. The argument that they can still do those things is wrong, because cops have limited time and resources, and making them focus on something of dubious security value at the expense of things that might actually help is dumb.
And I know I said I was ignoring the ethical aspects for a moment, because frankly I think this is a dumb idea even without those considerations, but I think some of you people are forgetting one important thing. Many of those people being singled out are Americans just like you, with the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. Is it ok to apply a different standard to them simply because people who share their racial or religious background did something wrong? It's not about being PC or not, it's about recognizing that we are all Americans FIRST, and equality is a big part of being an American. Personally I think any idea to the contrary is about as un-American as you can get.
The argument goes something like this: applying the same security measures to two people, one Middle Eastern and the other not, is stupid because the Middle Eastern person is more likely to be a threat than the other person. So the answer is to focus more on Middle Eastern people, because that way is more likely to nab threats.
There are two pretty obvious problems with this. Number one, and the more obvious one, is that while INCREASING security applied to those profiled, you are decreasing it for those the profile doesn't apply to. If "random" searches at the subway occur more often for people who match the profile, they occur less often for those that don't match the profile. As the genius assemblyman pointed out "they all look like this" producing pictures of Muslims on the watch list with facial hair and turbans. Anyone who doesn't see where I'm going with this, re-read that again until you do. A terrorist with half a brain will simply apply some quick and dirty measures to NOT fit the profile. Shave his facial hair, don't wear a turban, and dye his hair blonde. Maybe apply some makeup if he has darker skin so he looks less Middle Eastern. And not only is this very easy to do (and obvious to anyone who thinks about it for 2 seconds), it has made security far worse than it would have been previously, because with those simply steps it is far less likely that he will be searched than before. And this is totally ignoring the threat from terrorists who don't fit the assemblyman's stereotype.
Secondly, and perhaps less obviously, it weakens the benefits of having cops there in the first place by making them follow some rulebook instead of simpy going with their gut instincts and doing what we pay them to do. While they are patting down Abdul Abdul, some American looking guy could be acting all shifty, wearing a parka in July, or any of the dozens of other things that cops could be watching for. The argument that they can still do those things is wrong, because cops have limited time and resources, and making them focus on something of dubious security value at the expense of things that might actually help is dumb.
And I know I said I was ignoring the ethical aspects for a moment, because frankly I think this is a dumb idea even without those considerations, but I think some of you people are forgetting one important thing. Many of those people being singled out are Americans just like you, with the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. Is it ok to apply a different standard to them simply because people who share their racial or religious background did something wrong? It's not about being PC or not, it's about recognizing that we are all Americans FIRST, and equality is a big part of being an American. Personally I think any idea to the contrary is about as un-American as you can get.
"Profiling works"? Prove it. The NYPD in that very article said they DON'T think it works, logic suggests it doesn't work, I have seen nothing to suggest it does work. Do you have information to the contrary?
This isn't about the two extremes, granny and ackbar, it's about profiling in general, and it lets through way more than granny. If we focus on Ackbar, all a terrorist has to do is not look like Ackbar and our system is much LESS secure than it used to be. Are you arguing that this would be difficult, because you would be wrong.
Indeed, but this is pretty clearly not one of those means. This is an example of targetting a broad social, religious and racial group for nothing more than security theater because we are afraid. Seems like they might be winning to me...
I have faith in my governmnet, I am sure they are already monitoring mosques since 9/11. My question is how to identify Muslims from Non-muslims? Just on looks and name will not work.
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
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Firstly, I would not consider the NYC police an authority on using statistical methods (some say "profiling") to prevent terrorism.
As to info to the contrary, Yeah look to Isreal's methods. They don't neccessarily employ "racial profiling". They use a combination of several things with race playing a small part. Other aspects includes age, gender, dress, behavior and so forth.
IMHO statistical profiling s/b used. So what that they are forced to change profiles as noted above. Let 'em go out and build new terror cells with Japanese or elderly black women etc. It will at least slow them down and expose them to detection. Plus, when they switch, we switch
The argument about "they'll just switch" is pretty lame IMHO. That's a great tactic to employ. Make 'em move from their already established strenghs (developed cells composed of Arabs etc.) to something else. It's a successful tactic employed everywhere, from military to business.
As far as Timothy Mcvey and Rudoph, Oh please! they weren't suicide/homicide bombers in the first place. AND such examples are few out of some hundred million white guys in the country. Hardly statistically relevent. In any case, they serve as examples against "racial profiling", which is a narrow/weak model anyway. And one that I don't think is widely recommended and now talked about.
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
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The methods being suggested are more than "broad social, religious and racial group ". See my above post. I agree that racial profiling is pretty lame. Why strip search 85 year-old Arab women, or 3 yr kids?
The reasonable means I'm referring to are more refined/complicated than that. The REAL problem we have in deploying such methods is lack of training currently. OK, no big deal to notice heavy Winter coats in the Summer. But recognizing "behavioral" and other "clues" is different.
Since when being a suicide/homicide bomber is the criteria for being a terrorist?
Timothy Mcvey and Rudoph are in the same category i.e. terrorist.
Until Ackbar changes his look lets continue the profilling. You are talking in generalities and possibilities for the future. The face of terrorism today is ackbar and you cant get around it.
Focus less on grandma and the swede and more on ackbar. Once ackbar looks like grandma and the swede change with the times.
Ackbar hasnt changed his look in 800 years, and I dont think he will change it anytime soon.
As opposed to random assemblymen? Are there actual experts out there that advocate this sort of thing?
Israel has some pretty interesting methods to fight terrorism, many of which involve tradeoffs I don't think we would be willing to make. As for their profiling, as you said, it's pretty complex, and it's pretty much what cops do all the time anyways. And it's not what's being proposed here.
You are missing a big point here, if all we do is pay more attention to people who look like our stereotype of terrorists (obvious Arabs, for example), they don't have to "switch" anything. You can avoid such lame profiling by wearing some makeup (Arabs already look pretty white) and dye your hair. The cost to them is much lower than the cost to us, and at the end of the day our system is less secure.
Hmm, so you AREN'T talking about racial profiling, but statistical profiling? Why not just leave it up to the cops then? They are probably better at it than any static model we can come up with, for various reasons that are close to why racial profiling is stupid. And in any case, racial profiling IS what is being argued here, at least by most people.
Fine, train cops to recognize suspicious behavior and other clues. That's something I could get behind. But the methods being suggested by most people in this thread, as well as the article in the OP, is NOT suggesting that. They are suggesting something much more basic, and dumb. Re-read the article and previous posts if you don't believe me.
How dumb do you think terrorists are? They don't bother trying to look different because it makes no difference now. We start targetting Arabs, and they will go to the store and buy some stuff for $10 that defeats our new system. It's not a possibility, it's an almost certainty, because the system has some glaring weaknesses, and if *I* thought of it, I'm pretty sure they can too. Underestimating your enemy is pretty foolish, especially when this is such and obvious tradeoff. And besides, how will we know that Ackbar the terrorists is changing his looks, when another subways blows up?
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