when you're in a hole.....

[callmeslick]

....just keep digging and look for bigger shovels. This guy has no understanding of the American Character, nor the Constitution.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... li=BBnb7Kz

[Top Gun]

Does that hole start with "ass"?

[woodchip]

What part of racial profiling do you not understand. Show me on the doll where the bad racial profiler touched you.

[vision]

Author Sam Harris writes about using profiling in a limited and reasonable manner. The article below also links to a follow-up post and a counterpoint, all of which should be read.

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/in- ... -profiling

This article is from a few years ago and is in relation to the TSA and airports, not situations like the Orlando shooting.

[Jeff250]

The problem is as soon as you optimize for a certain race, then you're creating a weakness that your adversary can exploit by sending someone who is of a different race than the one you're optimizing for, making you even more vulnerable. Since people can't really change their race, then some think that this is an acceptable tradeoff, since (e.g.) ISIS members tend to predominantly come from certain racial backgrounds. I'm not so sure it matters though, since ISIS would only need one white (or any non-middle eastern) person to pull off an attack, and we already know that ISIS has white Americans in its fold.

The real problem that continues to be ignored is that TSA security is so ineffective it doesn't really matter if they racially profiled (from a security perspective--obviously it matters from a personal liberty standpoint).

[vision]

The problem is as soon as you optimize for a certain race, then you're creating a weakness that your adversary can exploit by sending someone who is of a different race than the one you're optimizing for, making you even more vulnerable.

Agreed. But might there might be a way to optimize the system by reducing the weight of clear outliers while minimally increasing the weight of target age/gender/race groups? Perhaps a mixture of profiling and randomization? Let's take mass shootings for example: clearly there have been few to no women in their 80s committing mass murder (outside of driving through a busy intersection full of pedestrians). We can create a model the gives appropriate weight to that fact. Then again I don't know the extent of resources and time that go into investigating old ladies, so maybe there is no cost/benefit to that kind of optimization. I can only assume this has already been thought of.

[Ferno]

The problem is as soon as you optimize for a certain race, then you're creating a weakness that your adversary can exploit by sending someone who is of a different race than the one you're optimizing for, making you even more vulnerable. Since people can't really change their race, then some think that this is an acceptable tradeoff, since (e.g.) ISIS members tend to predominantly come from certain racial backgrounds. I'm not so sure it matters though, since ISIS would only need one white (or any non-middle eastern) person to pull off an attack, and we already know that ISIS has white Americans in its fold.

The real problem that continues to be ignored is that TSA security is so ineffective it doesn't really matter if they racially profiled (from a security perspective--obviously it matters from a personal liberty standpoint).

And given the fact that 80 percent of attacks in America are from homegrown citizens, that makes it unimaginably easy for ISIS to exploit.

[callmeslick]

and it seems to bother few that profiling of any type sort of runs afoul of our principles of Justice? Where is the presumption of innocence, the due process, the 'reason' that prevents any profiling from being unreasonable search or seizure? Geezus, people, this is America. Yes, the system poses potential risk, although others above point out the risks in any approach. So, maybe it takes a certain strength of character to live in a reasonably free and open society. I'll go that route, thanks.

[Ferno]

well you know... due process is only good when it suits them.

[vision]

Where is the presumption of innocence, the due process, the 'reason' that prevents any profiling from being unreasonable search or seizure?

I think in this case you can have your cake and eat it too. Profiling isn't the same as accusing someone of a crime. It's an educated guess of where you might expect crime. Profiling isn't searching, but might make searches more productive. Don't get me wrong, I think profiling has a very limited usefulness and scope. As it stands in regard to the TSA, everyone is guilty and subject to search when they walk into an airport terminal. I wonder if maybe the addition of some profiling mechanism would lighten the oppressive atmosphere in such a place? I'm just thinking out loud here and not committed to a viewpoint either way. I also don't have any suggestion whatsoever for how to apply profiling to gun control measures.

[callmeslick]

how would that TSA thing work? Sort of like the old Simpsons episode with the seedy singles nightclub("you must be THIS swarthy to enter")? Come on, you are just oversimplifying and generalizing and that has been proven(for some reasons cited by others in this thead) to be EASY to manipulate.

[woodchip]

how would that TSA thing work? Sort of like the old Simpsons episode with the seedy singles nightclub("you must be THIS swarthy to enter")? Come on, you are just oversimplifying and generalizing and that has been proven(for some reasons cited by others in this thead) to be EASY to manipulate.

Yes and the "Lets focus on everybody" has proved to be so terribly effective eh.

[Tunnelcat]

Ya know, I've got a better metaphor to use for Trump than Hitler. He's the perfect twin to the character Jack Merridew from the book Lord of the Flies. The analysis pretty much matches Trump's behavior during his presidential run to a tee.

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/ ... lysis/jack

[vision]

how would that TSA thing work?

I'm not sure exactly, but I have friends who travel a lot that often bypass pre-screening, so we are already making exceptions. I'm not suggesting the Israeli model. I just think there is room for optimization and reduction in security theater. Since we are all in some government database already it might be as easy as giving travelers a score only TSA agents will see. The score would determine the frequency of random searches for a given group. For every search that doesn't happen on an old Irish grandmother we can have one more search on a target group. I say this knowing that I would probably be included in a group more likely to be searched. Everyone would still be subject to random searches, but the act of searching would be smarter.

[Jeff250]

Agreed. But might there might be a way to optimize the system by reducing the weight of clear outliers while minimally increasing the weight of target age/gender/race groups? Perhaps a mixture of profiling and randomization? Let's take mass shootings for example: clearly there have been few to no women in their 80s committing mass murder (outside of driving through a busy intersection full of pedestrians). We can create a model the gives appropriate weight to that fact. Then again I don't know the extent of resources and time that go into investigating old ladies, so maybe there is no cost/benefit to that kind of optimization. I can only assume this has already been thought of.

If you are absolutely certain that ISIS can never recruit an 80 year old woman, then I think it makes sense. Otherwise, if you put less attention on 80 year old women, you're basically inviting ISIS to find an 80 year old woman to perform the attack and to take advantage of the weakness that you just opened up for them.

[vision]

If you are absolutely certain that ISIS can never recruit an 80 year old woman, then I think it makes sense.

I would never be certain, but that doesn't change anything. ISIS and other organizations that employ terrorism in the Middle East have already used women and children for suicide attacks. Still, the numbers heavily favor young men. Surely there are terrorist groups looking to utilize seniors as weapons, but I imagine it's significantly more difficult. My point is that whatever score we attach to outliers in a profile needs to correspond to the difficulty in recruiting that person for an attack. And again, any system should definitely include randomness.