Profiling

[Iceman]

This ended up in my mailbox and I thought I would just toss it out here and see if someone ignited it

My personal opinion? I don't like the idea of profiling one bit but ... I just don't see any other way. If someone has a viable, reliable alternative I would love to hear about it.

HISTORY TEST

Please pause a moment, reflect back, and take the following multiple choice test. The events are actual Events from history. They actually happened!

Do you remember?

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by

a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. a Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by

a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:

a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:

a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:

a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by:

a. The Smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by:

a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:

a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by:

a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:

a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary Clinton, to distract attention from Wild Bill's women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by:

a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against:

a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by:

a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Nope, .I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people. They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winning and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim Males between the ages 17 and 40 alone lest they be guilty of profiling.

Let's send this to as many people as we can so that the Gloria Aldreds and other dunder-headed attorneys along with Federal Justices that want to thwart common sense, feel doubly ashamed of themselves -- if they have any such sense. As the writer of the award winning story "Forrest Gump" so aptly put it, "Stupid is as stupid does."

And guess who just bombed London?

[Duper]

c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women


kinda figured that was obvious.

[MD-2389]

Seen it before dozens of times. This is just a revision. The only real viable solution is to search everyone. Random searching is just plain stupid, because it always leaves room for some douchebag to get through and do something stupid. This way, everyone is being treated equally, and it leaves no room for "profiling" suits.

[roid]

profiling based on political and idealogical beliefs has been going on extensively in the FBI since at least the 70s.

domestic counter-inteligence it is an ugly mark on a society that advertises itself as free.

add racial profiling to this, sure, just as long as you call it what it is. none of this "we are a free society!" crap, that rhetoric has to finally stop pls.
pls?

arabian ppl seem to understand why, and strangely from all i've seen they don't seem to mind as much as i think they should, so i guess that puts the whole thing in their court - if they wanted it gone then they would be kicking up a stink about it. from what i've seen, they ARN'T kicking up much protest about it, so i'm assuming that they don't have a better idea (so are reluctantly accepting it).

the whole thing still makes me feel uneasy.
(as it well should)

[Ferno]

that email is rediculous and was only created to incite hate.

[Zuruck]

yah like ferno said, you could have one those lists for just about any type of person. what's the root of these problems? anyone think of that?

[DCrazy]

I think the problem lies with people claiming the the root of the problem is injustice caused by America doing intellectual battle with people who claim that blaming America does not solve the problem.

It's a battle of the guilty versus the practical, but since everyone on both sides of the fence with enough power to do something about it is too busy drumming up political support, nothing is getting done. Rather, we have a half-assed war going on and half-assed security at home.

Think about it Zuruck: how does "thinking about the cause of the problem" provide a solution to the very real fact that people are attacking innocents? How does blaming America for causing all of the woes of the Middle East address the fact that political figureheads like Osama Bin Laden et al. are using the now existing woes of the Middle East (as well as a mess of religious fanatacism to add external justification) to turn people against us? Quite frankly, why the Middle East is in its current sorry state is inconsequential to the question of protecting America and American interests (such as England, France, Germany, Japan, and the rest of the free world on whom we depend to keep our society from stagnating).

You have to separate the philosophical questions (who is responsible, and how can we make amends?) from the practical ones (how do we keep people from blowing us up?). Maybe waging war in Iraq isn't the way to do it. But neither is sitting down and pondering the root causes of Middle Eastern theocracy, religious fanatacism, and poverty.

[Ferno]

yah like ferno said, you could have one those lists for just about any type of person. what's the root of these problems? anyone think of that?

that takes too much effort, and so people will just take the easiest route; a bandaid.

[Drakona]

I have no moral objections to profiling where it makes statistical sense. My response would be even stronger than the poll option, "We have no other choice." More along the lines of, "To do otherwise would just be stupid."

People "profile" on all sorts of unrelated things all the time, and it's not morally objectionable at all, just good sense. If you lived in England a few years ago, you can't donate blood in America, because you might have CJD. You probably don't, but it's a statistical filter that works when a real test is difficult. If you're a male teacher, you can't go hang out alone in certain situations with a young female student, because you might take advantage of her. You probably won't, but in the absence of a perfect moral test it's a statistical filter that works pretty well. And so on, and so forth. Why is race any different? Of course race in and of itself is morally meaningless, just like living in England or being male. But if the statistics make it a useful filter, why not use it?

It's not that most arabs are terrorists, but that a lot of terrorists are arabs. It's not racism, it's statistics and utility. Maybe I'm morally naive about this, but I honestly have never understood what's so objectionable here.

[Instig8]

Profiling is one of those stereotypical buzwords.

[Flabby Chick]

If you lived in England a few years ago, you can't donate blood in America, because you might have CJD.

Oooh that's me, thats me Actually i still can't in donate here in Israel.

As to the topic, i couldn't agree more Drak. If left handed, droopy eyed, orange haired, one legged dwarfs were bombing our capital cities we'd be profiling them no??

The problem lies the other way. We may become so dependant upon the profile we may miss the exceptions. It's happened a few times here when women started to wear the explosives.

[roid]

i just realised this email isn't actually saying racial profiling. it's RELIGIOUS profiling.

it doesn't say arab in there once, it says MUSLIM.

this is a no-no. we all know that most moderate muslims don't consider extremist muslims to even BE muslims.
much like you wouldn't consider the Ku Klux Klan to be true christians.

it should also be said that in my part of the world muslims arn't even arab - they are indonesian.
212 million indonesian Muslims on my doorstep. hey yeah, lets profile them all

[woodchip]

So how many of you bleeding hearts step on a spider whether the spider is harmless or not.
Zuruck, one of the succesful bombers in the first go around was a teacher. So what was his complaint? Didn't have a job? Lived in squalor? If it was America's fault why did he blow himself and a few dozen Brits up?
As Drakona points out profiling goes on all the time...just ask Madison Avenue.

[Pandora]

the email doesn't convince me at all. You cannot just cite all the instances in which a crime was perpetuated by "male muslim extremists" without showing all the other similar crimes that have taken place (that did not involve muslims).
THEN you can look if there is "pattern"; for instance, if the muslim extremists are more likely involved in these crimes than would have been predicted by the distribution in the population of america.

too bad, humans have a tendency for finding patterns in selective lists like that --- it has even been shown scientifically. This is why such emails work so well for propaganda...

[Gooberman]

I kind of agree with Roids first post on this one. My gut instinct is to vote no, but most of the opposition I see isn't from Arab americans, it's from white people.

[Ferno]

have a look at www.propagandacritic.com and filter the email through the questions they pose.

[Birdseye]

I vote yes on profiling.

80 yr old grandma's getting searched is a waste of time.

If there was a killer that looked like me and the police stopped me all the time, it would be annoying but I would understand.

I think we have to be realistic here. When the police put out a description of suspect, they pull over and talk to people matching the suspect's description. These terrorists have enough of a general description that lives can be saved by 'profiling'. This is not the same as saying because black people committ more murders per capita that black people should be randomly pulled over. That is extremely general and unfair. In this case we have a known movement and a loosely banded group, and all the attacks on London and the US the men have a physical appearance that slims down the suspect list by a lot.

I'm not saying only focus on young muslim men. I'm more saying, quit wasting time searching grandma randomly. Be more likely to search young men, possibly of all races. It seems younger men are the most likely culprits. Go for men under 50 years old first, but be vigilant with any suspicious character. Sure, any system has its holes, but searching grandma from Iowa is a danger to all of us.

[Iceman]

Birdsy I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head ... at least you described my feelings on the matter.

I want to write so badly about this now but I just don't have the time today ...

[Iceman]

i just realised this email isn't actually saying racial profiling. it's RELIGIOUS profiling.

it doesn't say arab in there once, it says MUSLIM.

this is a no-no. we all know that most moderate muslims don't consider extremist muslims to even BE muslims.

We all know that most moderate arabs don't consider extremist arabs to even be arabs too.

The man didn't use the word arab because arab didn't accurately describe the group of people comitting the crimes. Lots of muslims are non-arabs. I guess I don't see your logic here ... its OK to profile based upon race and not on religion? I don't like the idea of profiling PERIOD. I don't think that racial or religious profiling is a healthy tool for a free society to use. That's why this whole thing upsets me ... I have to choose between the following :

Less Freedom or Not doing anything at all and therefore allowing the terrorists to have their way with us.

[Birdseye]

I think at the very least we can do age/gender profiling and greatly increase our statistical chances.

[Will Robinson]

How about all the people smart enough to understand the wisdom of profiling in this case can ride the bus/subway with the blonde haired children and the eighty year old blue haired lady's.

All the people worried about offending the sensitivities of brown skinned people can ride the bus/subway with the unsearched middle eastern looking males between the ages of 17 and 40...

[Dedman]

How about all the people smart enough to understand the wisdom of profiling in this case can ride the bus/subway with the blonde haired children and the eighty year old blue haired lady's.

All the people worried about offending the sensitivities of brown skinned people can ride the bus/subway with the unsearched middle eastern looking males between the ages of 17 and 40...

Will, why do hate America so much

[Iceman]

It doesn't look like America is his target here

[Duper]

i just realised this email isn't actually saying racial profiling. it's RELIGIOUS profiling.

it doesn't say arab in there once, it says MUSLIM.

this is a no-no.

Dude.. read the whole sentence:

Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

There are 4 catagories there. AND they need to be read together. I worked with a gal from Iran and she is Muslim (Iran is pronounced i-raun, btw, with a short "i") she was telling me that the religious fanatics in the south are crazy. Seriously extreme and care nothing for killing people where they think it's appropriate. The capitol in the south is a city-college that teaches extremism. She told me the name of the sect but I have forgotten.

My point is that when a group of people are bent on destroying us, it's wise to try and separate them from the crown. They WANT to mix in and CAN because we're too afraid of offending someone.
"Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40" is a statical group with validity. But should we throw all of them that step foot on American soil in jail? no. DUH. Should our Federal Bureau of Intellegence and the Central Intellegence Agency listen when forgein Intelligence groups WARN us?? YEAH. Does it suck for the guys how are innocent? Yeah, but they should club the dorks that look lke them to death. Infact, the extremeists who are doing all the killing could careLESS about people from thier country.

[woodchip]

I said in a prior post and will say it again...how many of our cities will have to be blown up before political correctness is deep six'd? Britain has seen the light and even (gasp) the French. Maybe it'll take a couple more thousand of our countrymen being blown to bits before our light bulb comes on.

[Ferno]

How does one tell a moderate from an extremist?

Counterexample:

On July 27th, 1996, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing was commited by:

A) Jean Cretien
B) Wal-Mart Employees
C) Donald Duck
D) male christian extremists.


In a suburb of Atlanta, on January 16, 1997, Sandy Springs was bombed by:

A) RuPaul
B) Mr. Bean
C) Bonnie and clyde
D) male christian extremists



In Uganda, a civil war is raging between the Uganda government and:

A) The tooth Fairy
B) The simpsons
C) Mr. Rogers
D) male christian extremists

I'm sure there are more examples.

[Duper]

Don't worry Ferno, we already ARE under suspicion in this country.

*I know you were just using that as an example*

[roid]

We all know that most moderate arabs don't consider extremist arabs to even be arabs too.

i meant arab in the genetic resemblance sense (like european or asian), not idealogical.

Dude.. read the whole sentence

Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

age based profiling is not an issue ppl debate, so i didn't bother talking about it.

------------------------------

When i first saw this i thought it was referring to racial profiling. Which can generally be done VISUALLY, on the spot. You simply target all your searches on people who look of arabian descent, easily done.
I was concerned when i checked and saw it said "Muslim" not arab. Because religious beliefs are not something that you can visually check on the spot at a glance. To do that kindof profiling you need to get into personal information, and you need agencys to collect, organise, and govern the distribution of this otherwise personal information. The FBI already does this, and they have a track record that says that they abuse it.

You can get onto the FBI's no-fly list by simply having a (vocal) dissenting political opinion.
this could even been seen as the FBI trying to discourage political dissident (ie: the FBI's CoIntelPro program)
The same could happen with Muslims. and when you get into territory like that, you are scraping on the door of state sanctioned RELIGIOUS descrimination.
to coin a local QLD phrase; "it's a worry".

have at least a skim over the wiki article on the FBI's COINTELPRO program.

COINTELPRO is an acronym ('COunter INTELligence PROgram') for a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO operations of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against organizations that were (at the time) considered to have politically radical elements, such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organizations whose stated goal was the violent overthrow of the US government such as the Weathermen, to racist and segregationist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The document that launched the COINTELPRO operations against Black groups directed FBI agents to "track, expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities" of these dissident movements and their leaders.

[Top Gun]

I'm with Drakona and Birdseye on this one. I don't know about the rest of you, but I haven't heard of too many blue-haired, 80-year-old grandmothers who are also extreme fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. It's a sad choice to have to make, but we all have to accept reality.

[MD-2389]

I'm with Drakona and Birdseye on this one. I don't know about the rest of you, but I haven't heard of too many blue-haired, 80-year-old grandmothers who are also extreme fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. It's a sad choice to have to make, but we all have to accept reality.

But the thing is, if you concentrate on the muslims, then who's going to stop morons like ol' Ted? Remember Oklahoma City? Funny, Ted didn't look like a muslim to me. Screen them all, or not at all. That would be the only fair way to do it, and atleast it would actually do some good. After all, what's to stop them from buying some makeup on the internet and re-doing their entire face to look totally different?

Not perfect by any means, mind you, but its better than focusing on one group and completely ignoring another.

[Will Robinson]

But the thing is, if you concentrate on the muslims, then who's going to stop morons like ol' Ted? Remember Oklahoma City? Funny, Ted didn't look like a muslim to me.

Funny, since Ted was arrested there have been no more attacks from his group...
If white guys start bombing stuff again the profile will be adjusted. For now concentrate the limited resources on the most likely suspects.
Fair is for fairy tales.

[MD-2389]

Funny, since Ted was arrested there have been no more attacks from his group...
If white guys start bombing stuff again the profile will be adjusted. For now concentrate the limited resources on the most likely suspects.
Fair is for fairy tales.

You're missing the entire point Will. You're leaving a HUGE hole for potential terrorists to slip through by concentrating on a single "profile".

[Drakona]

Funny, since Ted was arrested there have been no more attacks from his group...
If white guys start bombing stuff again the profile will be adjusted. For now concentrate the limited resources on the most likely suspects.
Fair is for fairy tales.

You're missing the entire point Will. You're leaving a HUGE hole for potential terrorists to slip through by concentrating on a single "profile".

Nobody is advocating ignoring everyone else in favor of a single group, but instead focusing on people who will give you the best return on your efforts.

If you have an organized crime ring, and 99% of its members are hispanic, and you live in a city with a very small hispanic population... okay, investigate all the hispanics. The remaining 1% either got away, or you'll need more specific leads on them, or another filter.

If you have an organized crime ring, and 40% of its members are hispanic, and you live in a city with a very small hispanic population... okay, investigate all the hispanics. The remaining 60% either get away, or you need another filter, or situation-specific leads.

If you have an organized crime ring that's 5% hispanic, and your city is also 5% hispanic, don't waste your time.

In general, focus your efforts on areas that give good returns on the investment. If ideological history correlates well with membership in the group, investigate the people with a certain ideological history. If it's race, or hair color, or national origin, or electricity use... whatever... use it if it's statistically valid and feasible.

I'm not saying that's all that should be done, or that such statistical tests are the only tool you have. And I'm certainly not saying that you should use such things to violate the just liberty of a segment of the population, however small. But I am saying that you should be able to use such statistical tests as a tool where they are effective and sensible and moral. Basically, I'm arguing against the viewpoint that says you can't investigate the Muslims more often than the Christians. If you have statistical warrant for it, you absolutely should. Even if it only catches some of the bad guys, and disproportionately inconveniences others, that's better than having no filter at all and having to randomly test everyone. Of course, where you have individual-specific leads, you can use those. And if random searches are effective, use them too.

[Will Robinson]

Funny, since Ted was arrested there have been no more attacks from his group...
If white guys start bombing stuff again the profile will be adjusted. For now concentrate the limited resources on the most likely suspects.
Fair is for fairy tales.

You're missing the entire point Will. You're leaving a HUGE hole for potential terrorists to slip through by concentrating on a single "profile".

No, I think you may have missed it though.

Timothy McVeigh set off his one bomb on April 19, 1995. How many times since then has one of his fellow terrorists set off another bomb?
Answer - 0

In the meantime, alQueda/middle eastern muslim extemists have set off dozens of bombs killing thousands of americans.

Until the subway/ bus bombing in London we weren't considering searching *anyone* and we still aren't anticipating Timothy McVeigh's fellow terrorists (are there any?) to attack us.
However, now that we do anticipate al Queda to attack our subways and busses we should look for people that fit an al Queda profile.
People that look like Timothy McVeigh don't fit that profile....

If we were talking about a new solution to permantly search for all possible threats you would have something of a point..but that is not what we are trying to accomplish. We don't even have the resources to search for all possible middle eastern looking threats so the point is to maximize the results from what resources we do have and focus them in the direction of the most likely suspects.

No doubt the enemy will adapt and then we will have to 'counter-adapt'.

But until then I'll be damned if I'm drinking the politically correct kool-aid and suggesting we reduce our resources further by doing truly random searches!

[woodchip]

But the thing is, if you concentrate on the muslims, then who's going to stop morons like ol' Ted? Remember Oklahoma City? Funny, Ted didn't look like a muslim to me. Screen them all, or not at all. That would be the only fair way to do it, and atleast it would actually do some good. After all, what's to stop them from buying some makeup on the internet and re-doing their entire face to look totally different?

Not perfect by any means, mind you, but its better than focusing on one group and completely ignoring another.

Well, good 'ole boy Ted didn't drop the building by taking a plane out to Oklahoma City, hijacking it and flying it into the building. Not much sense in screening for skin-head white boys now is there? So until the neo-nazis start bombing subways, why search little old ladies paper bags and wand their depends undies?

[Will Robinson]

oops

[Ferno]

well no one's profiling christians, are they.

[Stryker]

I don't see Christians traveling to Arab countries and blowing themselves up or hijacking airliners to fly them into large buildings.

Christians are profiled, actually, in Arab nations.

[Ferno]

refer to my uganda example.

[Will Robinson]

refer to my uganda example.

If christians are terrorizing Ugandans then Uganda should be profiling the christians in their country...but whatever is happening over there doesn't mean we shouldn't profile middle eastern males on our busses and subways etc. over here.