What is wrong with racial/religious profiling?

[Rainsford]

Exactly - none of those factors require knowing a person's race or religion.

Of course there's enough holes in that profile to drive a hijacked 747 through

The truth is that profiling a huge group of people with a very small percentage of true positives is doomed to failure from the start, particularly when it's incredibly easy for an attacker to "test" the profile.

Racial and religious profiling are morally reprehensible, but changing the data that's profiled isn't going to make the profiles any more effective. Random searching is probably the best we can do, because any statistical profiling is going to decrease the chances we find a terrorist who doesn't fit the profile, an individual who it's easy for the terrorist groups to identify even if the profile is secret.

 

[Patranus]

Your math is fine, it's your assumptions that are failing. You're assuming that the vast majority of future terrorists fit an easily testable profile that applies to very small percentage of overall travelers. I don't see a lot of support for that position, which makes the general idea a little suspect.

That is what people said after 2001 yet the same profile of people keep trying to kill Americans.

 

[umbrella39]

What is wrong with racial/religious profiling?

To me it sounds like a logical tool for law enforcement to use and is only discouraged because of political correctness.

Discuss.

What is your race/religion and I'll let you know...

 

[umbrella39]

Easy to narrow
Flown in from terrorist hot bed, check
Male between 15-40, check
Traveling alone or with other males, check
No checked bags on international fight, check

he gets xtra scrutiny/body scan

You pretty much described 10% of the people flying in and out of Detroit Metro Airport at any given time save the no checked bag part (I'm sure they'll start carry bags now if not having any starts getting scrutinized). Dearborn has the highest concentration of ethnic Arabs outside of the ME and what you are suggesting sounds like it will sure make for a fun day at the airport waiting in 2+ hour long lines. Then again we wait all year for our vacations to get the fuck out of the Detroit area, what's a few extra hours at the airport if we can weed out those hell bent on killing themselves and everyone else with them.

 

[Hacp]

You pretty much described 10% of the people flying in and out of Detroit Metro Airport at any given time save the no checked bag part (I'm sure they'll start carry bags now if not having any starts getting scrutinized). Dearborn has the highest concentration of ethnic Arabs outside of the ME and what you are suggesting sounds like it will sure make for a fun day at the airport waiting in 2+ hour long lines. Then again we wait all year for our vacations to get the fuck out of the Detroit area, what's a few extra hours at the airport if we can weed out those hell bent on killing themselves and everyone else with them.

You don't stop and stripsearch everyone who fits the profile. You just do it to them more often than to others who don't fit the profile.

 

[FaaR]

You don't stop and stripsearch everyone who fits the profile. You just do it to them more often than to others who don't fit the profile.

Whenever you profile, you skew the use of available resources by allocating more of them to investigate a certain group of people and less resources to that of another.

This means that if an "evildoer" deliberately avoids fitting the profile, he stands a GREATER chance of succeeding with his evil deeds than he would if security checks were done completely at random. So are you really more secure, or less?

And even if 90% of terrorists are from the ME (already an incredibly bogus assumption), and ME travellers make up 10% of worldwide flights, we're only talking about MAYBE one terrorist per several million travellers.

I would just like to have some big burly men beat the crap out of anyone who in the name of freedom advocates discriminating against such huge populaces on such a weak premise. It's DISGUSTING, and that you guys apparantly don't even get why it's disgusting just makes the stink even worse.

Truly, you people deserve neither security, nor liberty, because you don't appreciate it, nor even understand the meaning of it.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Your math is fine, it's your assumptions that are failing. You're assuming that the vast majority of future terrorists fit an easily testable profile that applies to very small percentage of overall travelers. I don't see a lot of support for that position, which makes the general idea a little suspect.

There are two issues here. One is the question of moral authority. Does one have the right to profile regardless of effectiveness?

The second is if it works.
Yes, it must. You cannot dismiss that any more than Creationists can dismiss dinosaurs as some massive hoax. One may try, but it isn't going to work.

Here's how it works in biology. I'm a grad student and I'm looking for a particular gene "T". I know (because it's been previously demonstrated) that within the universe of testable organisms the vast majority with the gene "T" display the phenotype "M".

Now my task is to isolate as many "T" types as possible.

Well that's simple. In the case of bacterial colonies, I just examine all of them.

Oops, a practical problem comes up here. My Petri dishes contain 20k colonies. Crap. There aren't enough hours in the day to do that.

So my lab mate comes in and decides to help. She takes half of them and does a random search of her half. Why? Her thought is that at some point there is going to be a mutation which which will change the population and relying on "M" as a guide is no longer valid.

I get that. Eventually that will change, because that's how the real world works, and as part of my thesis I do want to understand the larger picture, so I am going to examine some of the other colonies as well. Still my primary goal is to maximize my return and therefore I take more colonies displaying "M" than the others.

So...
We have the weekly lab meeting and everyone sits down and discusses what's been going on. We look at the number of "T" colonies that she and I have found. My adviser decides to make this a bit of fun and have us bet on who has the most "T" gene colonies.

So who does the smart money bet on? It's not her.


That is exactly the situation we have here. Yes it's almost certain that there will be "T"s who aren't "M"s, but it's not possible to examine the entire universe of organisms or travelers. So yes, at some point one will get by because I was busy catching the ten others who didn't.

Therein lies the whole crux of the matter. When one has finite resources with which to examine a population, one must take a sample. If there are characteristics which improve your chances of getting the right colonies, or critical structural parts, or terrorists, nothing changes.

The only argument you can make against that is the "phenotype" changes immediately and unpredictably, rendering the whole process useless. Ok, theoretically that's correct. When "T"s stop displaying "M" characteristics then you move on. Until then you go with established facts.

Now it should be painfully obviously to anyone keeping statistics for this purpose that "drift" or change will occur over time. You sift through the data and pull out what you can and adapt as possible.

Maybe terrorists will start hiring Brazilian Catholics to blow themselves up, but this being an ideologically driven phenomenon that's not likely.

Now the argument really comes down to this.

Which is the best moral choice- Do you resist profiling on ethical grounds and let more people die, or do you profile on the moral basis that saving lives is most important?

Which do you choose? You can't have both.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Whenever you profile, you skew the use of available resources by allocating more of them to investigate a certain group of people and less resources to that of another.

This means that if an "evildoer" deliberately avoids fitting the profile, he stands a GREATER chance of succeeding with his evil deeds than he would if security checks were done completely at random. So are you really more secure, or less?

And even if 90% of terrorists are from the ME (already an incredibly bogus assumption), and ME travellers make up 10% of worldwide flights, we're only talking about MAYBE one terrorist per several million travellers.

I would just like to have some big burly men beat the crap out of anyone who in the name of freedom advocates discriminating against such huge populaces on such a weak premise. It's DISGUSTING, and that you guys apparantly don't even get why it's disgusting just makes the stink even worse.

Truly, you people deserve neither security, nor liberty, because you don't appreciate it, nor even understand the meaning of it.

Wait, a person who blows up an airplane because he believes we the enemy of Islam is going to become a Jew?

I can't wait for that one.

 

[dawp]

Wait, a person who blows up an airplane because he believes we the enemy of Islam is going to become a Jew?

I can't wait for that one.

Since a large portion of the Jewish population is from the middle east, all he has to do is make himself appear Jewish, he doesn't have to become Jewish. people from that region tend to have similar features and could pass them selves off as Jewish without being Jewish.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Since a large portion of the Jewish population is from the middle east, all he has to do is make himself appear Jewish, he doesn't have to become Jewish. people from that region tend to have similar features and could pass them selves off as Jewish without being Jewish.

Then if ME Jews show the same "phenotype", then they are examined too.

As I said it's about maximizing return on resources expended, not about picking on someone in principle because of their religion. If there are circumstances where someone should be removed from whatever criteria, then use it on that individual, be they Jew, Muslim or whatever.

If any statistical technique is used, it must be constantly evaluated for bias.

If one decides that saving a certain number of lives is better than subjecting particular groups to extra scrutiny, then it had better be as well grounded in objectivity as possible. Intense oversight is NOT optional.

 

[FaaR]

Wait, a person who blows up an airplane because he believes we the enemy of Islam is going to become a Jew?

You're just not getting it.

Have you seen that movie with Eddie Murphy where he appears as a bunch of different people, including a white dude?

Does he, in that role, fit any of your racist stereotypes over how people can be programmed, categorized or otherwise easily referenced?

Or, AGAIN:
You're busy looking for T within subpopulation M (not very cleverly disguised codenames here for what you really mean). Except in the human world, Ts, even within M, number in mere handfuls per millions of people, and M does not have to LOOK LIKE M, and non-M could LOOK like M even though they are not.

So you waste time on xenophobically driven persecution, all the while missing other T that do not fit the qualification of M.

 

[heyheybooboo]

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

--

404 unreasonable not found

There are 55-60 million flights a year in the United States with a billion (?) or more boardings. We won't even include international flights.

The idea that 'profiling' a group (or groups) involving potentially millions of boardings is not unreasonable under the US Constitution is simply Fail and indefensible.

In other words, you and those who support suspending the Constitution simply suck for even suggesting it. Why do you hate America so much?

Our enemies do not operate in a vacuum. You endorse profiling American males who are Muslims, Arabs or those of ME descent. The subject in Detroit is bourgeois, from Africa and Black. When the 'profiles' are expanded and 'refocused' our enemies will simply turn to agents outside the profiles. White? Female? European? Are you going to further erode the constitutional rights of these persons?

Willfully mis-characterizing our difficulties through the use of 'profiling' and politicizing this debate is intellectually dishonest. Stripping millions of their Constitutional rights to find the single 'needle in the haystack' is .... Just. Plain. Stupid.

The system in place does not need to be thrown out. The system worked but it was not successful.

The scum in Detroit was on the big watch list. He had a US visa but his UK visa had been revoked. His own father raised an alarm concerning his behavior. What we need to solve within the existing system is the timing and elevation of the suspect watch list status. That will make us much safer.

So-called 'profiling' in addition to being un-Constitutional does not address this need.

~~snip~~

Basically racial and religious profiling sounds good to people who either want to punish all Muslims and/or Arabs, or who don't even have the foggiest understanding of the implementation issues involved, or both. It's an approach we should reject for moral reasons, and an approach we should reject for practical reasons. End of story.

This.

'Profiling', in addition to making us less free, makes us less safe.

Streamlining, simplifying and increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the current system is FTW. A shift in focus to 'profiling' takes our eyes away and further complicates the system.




--

 

[fskimospy]

There are two issues here. One is the question of moral authority. Does one have the right to profile regardless of effectiveness?

The second is if it works.
Yes, it must. You cannot dismiss that any more than Creationists can dismiss dinosaurs as some massive hoax. One may try, but it isn't going to work.

Here's how it works in biology. I'm a grad student and I'm looking for a particular gene "T". I know (because it's been previously demonstrated) that within the universe of testable organisms the vast majority with the gene "T" display the phenotype "M".

Now my task is to isolate as many "T" types as possible.

Well that's simple. In the case of bacterial colonies, I just examine all of them.

Oops, a practical problem comes up here. My Petri dishes contain 20k colonies. Crap. There aren't enough hours in the day to do that.

So my lab mate comes in and decides to help. She takes half of them and does a random search of her half. Why? Her thought is that at some point there is going to be a mutation which which will change the population and relying on "M" as a guide is no longer valid.

I get that. Eventually that will change, because that's how the real world works, and as part of my thesis I do want to understand the larger picture, so I am going to examine some of the other colonies as well. Still my primary goal is to maximize my return and therefore I take more colonies displaying "M" than the others.

So...
We have the weekly lab meeting and everyone sits down and discusses what's been going on. We look at the number of "T" colonies that she and I have found. My adviser decides to make this a bit of fun and have us bet on who has the most "T" gene colonies.

So who does the smart money bet on? It's not her.


That is exactly the situation we have here. Yes it's almost certain that there will be "T"s who aren't "M"s, but it's not possible to examine the entire universe of organisms or travelers. So yes, at some point one will get by because I was busy catching the ten others who didn't.

Therein lies the whole crux of the matter. When one has finite resources with which to examine a population, one must take a sample. If there are characteristics which improve your chances of getting the right colonies, or critical structural parts, or terrorists, nothing changes.

The only argument you can make against that is the "phenotype" changes immediately and unpredictably, rendering the whole process useless. Ok, theoretically that's correct. When "T"s stop displaying "M" characteristics then you move on. Until then you go with established facts.

Now it should be painfully obviously to anyone keeping statistics for this purpose that "drift" or change will occur over time. You sift through the data and pull out what you can and adapt as possible.

Maybe terrorists will start hiring Brazilian Catholics to blow themselves up, but this being an ideologically driven phenomenon that's not likely.

Now the argument really comes down to this.

Which is the best moral choice- Do you resist profiling on ethical grounds and let more people die, or do you profile on the moral basis that saving lives is most important?

Which do you choose? You can't have both.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news...ling-no-more-effective-than-random-screen.ars

This guy seems to disagree with you.

http://www.lamberthconsulting.com/about-racial-profiling/racial-profiling-doesnt-work.asp

These guys too.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

You're just not getting it.

Have you seen that movie with Eddie Murphy where he appears as a bunch of different people, including a white dude?

Does he, in that role, fit any of your racist stereotypes over how people can be programmed, categorized or otherwise easily referenced?

Or, AGAIN:
You're busy looking for T within subpopulation M (not very cleverly disguised codenames here for what you really mean). Except in the human world, Ts, even within M, number in mere handfuls per millions of people, and M does not have to LOOK LIKE M, and non-M could LOOK like M even though they are not.

So you waste time on xenophobically driven persecution, all the while missing other T that do not fit the qualification of M.

The M and T were made painfully obvious. Cleverly disguised? Okey doke.

First a suggestion. Avoid any career which involves science or math.

Let's restate your arguments:
Eddie Murphy can become a white dude in a movie, completely invalidating the data which exists, because the entire "T" population will become Eddie Murphy in a movie imitating a white guy.

That people will attempt to appear as they are not is a given, whether they can pull it off is another. If behavior changes significantly enough to change things then, yes AT THAT TIME, things need to change.

Ok Slappy,
If I'm so xenophobic or hate Muslims, why don't you embarrass me and find where I call for locking them up or whatever.

Time's wasting, and you are looking dumber every minute you can't find something.

 

[Rainsford]

That is what people said after 2001 yet the same profile of people keep trying to kill Americans.

You seem to have missed several of the key points in what I said.

First, in the abstract general sense you can look at the last few air attacks, and generically state that the perpetrators fit a certain profile. But turning that into an actual profile that can both be easily applied by the TSA and NOT easily evaded by terrorists is much more difficult.

For an example, consider the basic idea of profiling by religion and targeting Muslim fliers. Sounds "good", I suppose...but how exactly would you do that? The government doesn't know your religion, and even if they were going to find out, how would the TSA collect that information in an accurate way?

Second, I mentioned trying to stop FUTURE attacks. Building and using a profile based off a handful of attacks (because terrorist attacks are rare) explicitly limited to the last several years is, to put it politely, probably not a good idea. Sure, if 9/11 happens again in exactly the same way we MIGHT be ready...but what if it doesn't? There are non-Islamic terrorists out there, and while the focus the last several years has been on the Muslim kind of terrorism, I'm not sure it's a wise idea to make it EASIER for the next Timothy McVeigh to target our air travel system. And that's not to mention the fact that if terrorists KNOW we're profiling them based on race and/or religion, they're going to step up recruitment of people who don't look like they fit the profile. There have already been a few American converts to the other side...if we make those people less likely to be searched, you think Al-Qaeda is really going to send some idiot from central casting to hijack an airplane?

 

[palehorse]

When the 'profiles' are expanded and 'refocused' our enemies will simply turn to agents outside the profiles. White? Female? European? Are you going to further erode the constitutional rights of these persons?

Given the simple profile of "male Muslim of Arab, Persian, Indonesian, Asian, or African decent": Just out of curiosity, during the last decade, how many major terrorist attacks (or attempts), involving airplanes, have been undertaken by persons who are outside the parameters of said profile?

 

[Rainsford]

There are two issues here. One is the question of moral authority. Does one have the right to profile regardless of effectiveness?

The second is if it works.
Yes, it must. You cannot dismiss that any more than Creationists can dismiss dinosaurs as some massive hoax. One may try, but it isn't going to work.

Here's how it works in biology. I'm a grad student and I'm looking for a particular gene "T". I know (because it's been previously demonstrated) that within the universe of testable organisms the vast majority with the gene "T" display the phenotype "M".

Now my task is to isolate as many "T" types as possible.

Well that's simple. In the case of bacterial colonies, I just examine all of them.

Oops, a practical problem comes up here. My Petri dishes contain 20k colonies. Crap. There aren't enough hours in the day to do that.

So my lab mate comes in and decides to help. She takes half of them and does a random search of her half. Why? Her thought is that at some point there is going to be a mutation which which will change the population and relying on "M" as a guide is no longer valid.

I get that. Eventually that will change, because that's how the real world works, and as part of my thesis I do want to understand the larger picture, so I am going to examine some of the other colonies as well. Still my primary goal is to maximize my return and therefore I take more colonies displaying "M" than the others.

So...
We have the weekly lab meeting and everyone sits down and discusses what's been going on. We look at the number of "T" colonies that she and I have found. My adviser decides to make this a bit of fun and have us bet on who has the most "T" gene colonies.

So who does the smart money bet on? It's not her.


That is exactly the situation we have here. Yes it's almost certain that there will be "T"s who aren't "M"s, but it's not possible to examine the entire universe of organisms or travelers. So yes, at some point one will get by because I was busy catching the ten others who didn't.

Therein lies the whole crux of the matter. When one has finite resources with which to examine a population, one must take a sample. If there are characteristics which improve your chances of getting the right colonies, or critical structural parts, or terrorists, nothing changes.

The only argument you can make against that is the "phenotype" changes immediately and unpredictably, rendering the whole process useless. Ok, theoretically that's correct. When "T"s stop displaying "M" characteristics then you move on. Until then you go with established facts.

Now it should be painfully obviously to anyone keeping statistics for this purpose that "drift" or change will occur over time. You sift through the data and pull out what you can and adapt as possible.

Maybe terrorists will start hiring Brazilian Catholics to blow themselves up, but this being an ideologically driven phenomenon that's not likely.

Now the argument really comes down to this.

Which is the best moral choice- Do you resist profiling on ethical grounds and let more people die, or do you profile on the moral basis that saving lives is most important?

Which do you choose? You can't have both.

Again, your scientific analogy is flawed, because you try to transfer valid assumptions from pure science into the world of fighting terrorism...where those assumptions are no longer valid. I already stated what those unproven assumptions are, and I would like to point out that you didn't dispute any of them.

But to use your genetic example... Imagine that you decided gene "T" has phenotype "M" after only looking at a tiny sample size. And further, that phenotype "M" is difficult to test for accurately in the first place. And on top of all that, gene "T" is actively trying to evade detection, and might be able to not display phenotype "M" at all. Your approach as outlined above would be complete science fail given those circumstances, which much more closely match terrorist profiling.

As for the moral question, I've said it before and I'll say it again...our country was not founded on the idea of "safety for all". Ditching our ethical foundation so we can feel a little safer is a MUCH greater threat to this country than any terrorist could hope to be. Particularly when the danger we're trying to defend against is so stupidly rare that it's hardly worth even 1% of the effort we spend trying to fight it. I can't believe that you, as a scientist, don't see a problem with stating that it's an even balance between "ethics and letting more people die".

 

[Rainsford]

Given the simple profile of "male Muslim": Just out of curiosity, during the last decade, how many major terrorist attacks (or attempts), involving airplanes, have been undertaken by persons who are outside the parameters of said profile?

We're not trying to catch the LAST set of terrorist attacks, particularly when limited to the last decade alone. We're trying to stop the NEXT terrorist attack, and if we have a profile, you can bet the bad guys will be trying to evade it (which they had no reason to in the last decade).

Not only that, but your profile is kind of stupid. Sure, "male" is easy enough (maybe), but "Muslim" is untestable. You build a religion detection beam, then maybe we can talk...

 

[CanOWorms]

Profiling doesn't work. The Europeans are huge users of profiling; it's almost a form of art there and ingrained into the counter-terrorism and police forces practices. Yet so many of the terrorists attacking the United States come from Europe.

'No Convictions to Date' - Study Finds Ethnic Profiling Useless in Preventing Terror
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,626886,00.html

The report, entitled "Ethnic Profiling in the European Union," argues that profiling is both ineffective and counterproductive, pointing out that "stops and searches conducted under counterterrorism powers in Europe have produced few charges on terrorism offenses and no terrorism convictions to date."

I think that it's possible that the prevalence of profiling in Europe to oppress minority groups has actually created terrorists from further marginalization in society. So many terrorists become radicalized in Europe and then attack the United States. The use of profiling in Europe is itself a serious security threat to the United States.

 

[Rainsford]

...
First a suggestion. Avoid any career which involves science or math.
...

Just a nitpick here...but nobody is an expert in "science" or "math", and careers that focus on the two can still have dramatically different bodies of knowledge. I don't know what your background is, but it's obvious you think whatever it is is sciency enough to grant you expertise in all fields that involve science and math.

Except science and math don't work like that. Just because you are an expert in whatever you're an expert in doesn't mean you understand the particular math behind profiling, any more than a chemist can be expected to understand cryptography.

 

[Rainsford]

http://arstechnica.com/science/news...ling-no-more-effective-than-random-screen.ars

This guy seems to disagree with you.

http://www.lamberthconsulting.com/about-racial-profiling/racial-profiling-doesnt-work.asp

These guys too.

I particularly like the first one, because it outlines the problems that get introduced when you go from a perfect conceptual system to actually implementing it in the real world.

 

[palehorse]

We're not trying to catch the LAST set of terrorist attacks, particularly when limited to the last decade alone. We're trying to stop the NEXT terrorist attack, and if we have a profile, you can bet the bad guys will be trying to evade it (which they had no reason to in the last decade).

Not only that, but your profile is kind of stupid. Sure, "male" is easy enough (maybe), but "Muslim" is untestable. You build a religion detection beam, then maybe we can talk...

I modified the profile a little bit while you were replying to include ethnicity. Perhaps you could answer the question now?

That said, I believe the reason the "bad guys" have "had no reason to [change tactics] in the last decade" is because we haven't tried to apply an effective profiling system at the air terminals.

The more havoc we can cause by forcing them to change tactics, the less effective they will become. After all, don't you think it will be a little bit harder for them to find and recruit white women to do their suicidal work for them? Just a tad perhaps? Yeah...

Eventually, once their efforts to attack aircraft become futile, based on more effective screening (including passenger profiling), they'd need to find softer targets. Then, as always, we'd adjust fire as well.

I'm not quite sold on profiling either, but there is certainly an argument to be made that we wont really know until we try...

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Again, your scientific analogy is flawed, because you try to transfer valid assumptions from pure science into the world of fighting terrorism...where those assumptions are no longer valid. I already stated what those unproven assumptions are, and I would like to point out that you didn't dispute any of them.

It seems that you are taking valid points and saying that they don't apply because it involves terrorism. Well if the causes of terrorism were random, then I could agree. They aren't. They are mostly being done by a group of people who interpret their religion in such a way that it is a mandate that they attack us. That's how it is. That other reasons exist does not alter the fact that this is true. Do I really need to pull out headlines to show it?

If you say that it's complete coincidence that Muslims are committing the great majority of the terrorists acts that we've been talking about, then stop reading now. We are looking at two different universes.

But to use your genetic example... Imagine that you decided gene "T" has phenotype "M" after only looking at a tiny sample size. And further, that phenotype "M" is difficult to test for accurately in the first place. And on top of all that, gene "T" is actively trying to evade detection, and might be able to not display phenotype "M" at all. Your approach as outlined above would be complete science fail given those circumstances, which much more closely match terrorist profiling.

The first part of your statement isn't valid, because we aren't looking at abuses of aborigines in Australia. We aren't looking at terrorism based on tribalism in Africa.

I at least am talking about terrorism as it affects the West today and those who carry it out are overwhelmingly Muslim. If that offends someone, show where I'm wrong and I'll reevaluate my position. I'm not talking about a small sample of terrorists who try to blow themselves up, I'm talking about virtually the entire universe of them. Now the common misconception too many make is that if I say most terrorists in this context are Muslim, then that really means I'm saying that most Muslims are terrorists. Mr "Xenophobe" apparently did it, and note he hasn't brought back any evidence that I've said that, ever.

Your whole argument hinges on this:
Terrorists have the ability to hide their identity sufficently as to make them undetectable. Ok, just how many who have committed such acts did so? How many changed their identities and were not caught, and then pulled it off? Well, if that's the case and what would work now doesn't later, then you stop doing it. Until they demonstrate that they can operate just as effectively under these conditions, then it makes sense from an operative sense to go with how things are, not what you think might work for them in the future.

As for the moral question, I've said it before and I'll say it again...our country was not founded on the idea of "safety for all". Ditching our ethical foundation so we can feel a little safer is a MUCH greater threat to this country than any terrorist could hope to be. Particularly when the danger we're trying to defend against is so stupidly rare that it's hardly worth even 1% of the effort we spend trying to fight it. I can't believe that you, as a scientist, don't see a problem with stating that it's an even balance between "ethics and letting more people die".

What I'm not doing is conflating two issues. One is the effectiveness of screening based certain criteria. The objection (which if you note was taken into account in my prior post) is that once it's determined that being identified as a Muslim is more likely to have you searched that you will be able to hide your identity so well that you cannot be distinguished from background noise. I'm not certain that can be done well enough to render any systematic approach is completely useless. You do. We'll disagree.

That is what I've been addressing the whole time, but I brought into the equation the personal concerns of profiling. That this is a question of rights is not an issue, but it is not one sided.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Just a nitpick here...but nobody is an expert in "science" or "math", and careers that focus on the two can still have dramatically different bodies of knowledge. I don't know what your background is, but it's obvious you think whatever it is is sciency enough to grant you expertise in all fields that involve science and math.

Except science and math don't work like that. Just because you are an expert in whatever you're an expert in doesn't mean you understand the particular math behind profiling, any more than a chemist can be expected to understand cryptography.

He didn't try to refute my argument with science. He decided to play the emotional card. If he cannot tell the difference between the two then he needs to do something else. My science background is quite broad and a "sciency" conclusion I've come to is that if you let emotion to be your logic come question and answer time you are screwed. I'd be obliged if you would show me in which field of science or math that's false and we can co-write a paper on it.

 

[MJinZ]

The airline bomber in the news is Black. So much for racial profiling?