A 1000’s thank yous to each of you who contribute valuable logic and insight and especially more for La Shawn Barber.

I love this blog.

Yeah, but I think we would be waiting a long time. Our friends on the Left will not be convinced. All that can be done is put the info out there. What is sad, as Lashawn often points out, is the failure of the Bush Admin to resolutely confront the forces of political correctness and appeasement, and aggressively make its case to the American people rather than pandering all the time. The whole Admin appears really incoherent at times. Just look at how well they have communicated to the American people about the War in Iraq. One longs for a blunt Harry Truman to tell it like it is, rather than this mush-mouthed Admin. That is one of the main complaints of conservatives, even those sympathetic to Bush- failure to communicate clearly and aggressively.

so you’re “not against profiling, just against profiling via race/religion”. i see. so you’re not against profiling in….you know…..theory, just against it when it would be useful in fighting air terrorism.

that’s interesting. and what is it that makes race/religion so sacrosanct that it/they are untouchable and unmentionable and unprofilable? why is it ok with you to look at everything BUT race/religion? what’s so sacred about race? why is religion a ‘diplomatic pouch’ of sorts?

bottom line: it’s common-sense; it’s cheap; it would reduce a large percentage of air terrror incidents and worries; it would cause no grievous injury or lasting harm to those being profiled; (the 2 idiots yanked off the british ‘walkout’ flight told the press they were “in shock and despair”, but other than that, they seem to be ok), and it would make for safer, more worry-free air travel.

and you’re against it. loudly and at great length.

another side note on the amsterdam flight: had those 12 idiots been profiled and prevented from boarding that plane, it would have gone on its merry way on schedule. much more importantly, the other 200 people on that plane wouldn’t have had to go thorugh the fear/worry/nightmare of possible islamic air terror action; and they’d have arrived happy & on time.

i gather you don’t really care much about them, them being mere non-profilable proles. the feelings and pride of the 10 south-asian moslems outweighing entirely the needs/rights/expectations of those 200+ other folks. that about it?

Ed…

You complain about the length, but I’m not the only heavy poster on this comments section… apparently, other people enjoy reasoned and thoughtful debate.

matching your numbering:

1. Profiling is fine, and it happens today. Racial Profiling or Religious profiling is treating someone different based on their race or religion. This is the heart of the matter.

2. The point isn’t whether or not profiling will be effective. The issue is if it is right to use race and religion as key issues when profiling. I’m saying it isn’t right, and This is where you display a complete misunderstanding of my analogies:

We don’t treat all white people like they are members of the KKK until proved otherwise. We don’t treat all white people like they are members of the Aryan Nation until proved otherwise. We don’t treat all professional athletes like they all use banned substances until proved otherwise. We don’t treat all Mormons like polygamists until proved otherwise.

3. I’ve stated on numerous occasions that I am not against profiling, as long as it remains race and religion neutral.

You are right about the right to fly. And airlines and airport security have the right to turn back or arrest people they don’t think should fly. Also, if you’re too scared to fly because there might be Arabs or Muslims on the plane, then you have the right to not fly as well.

Side note on the Amsterdam flight for you. Your profile would have missed them. It is reported that the 12 suspects are Muslims; but they’re Indian Muslims not Arabic Muslims.

Redbeard:
1. Too complicated for you to understand, is that what you’re saying?

2. This issue isn’t about “offending” someone, as you may wish it to be. This issue is about treating someone differently, just because they are of a different race or religion. We don’t treat all white people different because of the way some white people act, why should we do the same against Arabs or Muslims? Because it’s against the law.

You can not reinterpret the words of the Koran. It tells them it is ok to rape and kill non-muslims, regardless of society. It is becoming less possible for non-muslims and muslims to reside in the same country/society, possibly the same planet, let alone the same airplane.

but, to my credit, i slogged through them, hoping to find a reasoned argument as to why you’re so against a common-sense program that will save lives at only the cost of wounded pride & hurt feelings by the individuals profiled. didn’t find ‘em. your arguments – best as i can tell – seem to be:
1) profiling is very very Mean and Hurtful To The Self-Esteem of the person being profiled. this is obviously no better than the nazis and their death camps.
2)profiling will not catch a bad guy who’s not a member of the profiled target group. (this is where you toss in the amusing-but-irrelevant questions about the KKK, aryan nation, steroid-using-major-leaguers, enron executives, aaaaaand mormons)(mormons??)despite none of these groups currently being involved in terrorism.
3)since profiling is Harsh & Insensitive, and cannot be proven to be 100% effective 100% of the time, your position is that we just not do it at all.

how can you expect those positions to be taken seriously? ok, i’ll even grant that profiling WON’T STOP those heinous KKK mormon baseball players. (LOL) but it WILL stop or slow down greatly a lot of the group who ARE trying to kill innocent air travelers: young middle-eastern arabic-speaking males.

and since profiling WILL result in at least 50% of that nonsense being stopped; at the cost of just a few moslem Tears and Scarred Psyches…..i think it’s a fine first step. because, after all, there is no guaranteed “right to fly”. partial success in stopping air terrorism before the plane is airborne is certainly better than no success at all. just ask the folks on that flight out of amsterdam: the ones who had to turn back today.

The race is absolutely a factor, if the victim of the crime reports a race. And here, we can catch the criminal before they have a chance to commit more crimes. This is a valid use of race in an attempt to apprehend a criminal. This example is not congruent with the idea of using race and religion to catch suicide bombers and terrorists.
Well in the case of terrorism, the incident is always investigated afterwards. Most surviving or peripheral witnesses will note that most of the terrorists carrying out most acts of terror are young Arab Muslim males. There are terrorists elsewhere, but in terms of volume and scope (international airlines and embassies), cross border raids, etc, Arab Muslims have been reported overwhelmingly by witnesses. That factor can be further refined by sub-divisions of age, sex etc, but the bottom line is that race and religion become extremely relevant.

You cannot prosecute them afterward. The action of using race or religion as a guide to process people, searching for bombers, implies that all persons of those sub-groups are potential bombers, and are bombers until proven otherwise. Even after you weed out the “most-likely nots” (like grandmothers and children), you still are telling a very large sub-group of Arab-looking people that they are bombers until proven otherwise. This thought countermands the ideals of the United States and is impermissible to me.
I can appreciate what you are saying, but as mentioned above in the case of Israel, ethnicity, age and religion are very relevant factors. The same thing applied Sept 11, 2001. Their race or ethnicity is relevant for another reason as well. For one thing, many terrorists articulate ethnic grievances (evil Jews must die). Second, religion is important because they articulate a mission to cleanse the “holy lands” of “infidels.” By the words and teachings of many of the terrorists themsleves, ethnicity/race and religion are important factors to their cause. If they consider these factors important, why shouldn’t their potential victims? Why should we wait around hoping they will “clarify” their meaning?

Your example fails when you consider that police will not canvass an area and simply ask “Are you gay?” Especially when all someone has to say is “No”. “No? Thanks, bye.” Police WILL look for men that match the description, but they won’t ask people if they are gay. They’ll look at people who frequent “gay bars”, but again, won’t ask if they’re gay. Similarly, we can inspect people that have traveled to certain regions, but I believe we are not allowed to ask, “Are you Muslim, sir?” Or, “Are you a Muslim Arab that’s within this age-group, sir?” These sorts of questions, and the implied thoughts behind them, however they might manifest, are simply illegal. They violate our right to equal protection and our right of protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
The questions you mention aren’t illegal in criminal investigations. Are you gay would not be asked at random on the street. Questioning would focus on likely suspects or witnesses known to hang around the same venues the gay victims did. Either way, the police start with a “profile” of known associates, behaviors and venues. In the case of a suspect, asking if they did the crime is certainly legit police work. Asking others if they know of similar sex attacks against young homosexuals is also legit. Again, the police are focusing on reasonable factors. Homosexual behavior would certainly be one in this scenario.

So CEO’s can be assumed to be against corporate fraud, but the Muslim community cannot?
Absolutely, for the simple fact that any CEO that openly advocates and carries out such fraud will not be a CEO for very long. In the case of mostly Arab Muslims however such open advocacy may be cause for admiration, prestige and fiscal support. Both leaders and followers of Hamas and Hezebollah for example revel in open advocacy of murder, as do millions of ordinary Muslims elsewhere. Does this mean 100% of ALL Muslims? Of course not, but unlike the case of the CEOs, there is enough support and sympathy for terror among Arab Muslims to legitimately raise the question.

But what of the Muslim clerics in England, Jerusalem, Jordan, and in Asia that spoke out against the acts? I see a debate in the Islamic community, based on articles, scholarly works and press conferences. The loud and violent faction does not seem to be the dominant faction…
Actually it is, and the proof is in millions of dollars that flow to them every year from people like the Saudis. Are they shrewd enough at times to tone the rhetoric and hide their moves at strategic times and places? Of course. As for “moderate” Muslim clerics, no one knows the exact percentage of such, but their condemnation of terrorist acts is often drowned by more radical voices, or muted with an assortment of “qualifications” that signal less than unequivocal opposition. See the writings of Frank Gaffney for example on such moderate voices, which even when they exist are suppressed not just by terror organizations, but by governing Arab regimes as well.

What about the Mormon faith? Do we judge/ discriminate/ profile all Mormons based on the acts of the Polygamist sect? The actions of few should never condemn the group as a whole. We take that approach with transgressions in the military (the accused are just bad apples), American tourists abroad face this sort of discrimination now (because of the acts of our government) and we resent it. What ethical grounds do we have to indict the Muslim faith based on the actions of Radicals?
Most of the Mormons at one time were polygamists, and they were accordingly “profiled” as such at various times and places in the past. The actions of a few should not condemn everyone as a whole, but it is a fact of real life that the actions of a few often poison perceptions of the whole. This of course is always unfair, but it is a fact of life. In the case of mostly Arab Muslims however, it is more than a matter of “the actions of a few” and the “unfair perceptions” involved. Such few have received widespread support and sympathy from the whole, as histories of Israel’s war against Arab terrorists demostrate. It is a fact that large majorities in the Arab world supported and still support the murder of Jews, and increasingly Americans. And cash is put on the line in support of that opinion, courtesy of Iran and Saudi Arabia. This is no case of a few “bad apples.” And it is not merely “the man on the street” but at the highest levels of Arab Muslim governments, from Saudi and Iranian cash, to the gubment controlled media of these countries.

And now, concurrent to the idea of racial and religious profiling, is it ethical to accuse every professional athlete of drug use (by subjecting every one of them to a drug test before a professional event), because a sizable minority resort to drug enhancements? I say no to that for the same reason I say no to racial and religious profiling. It presumes the subject is guilty, until proven innocent.
Not really. It could just as well be argued that the athletes are clean and the drug tests are a mere formality to confirm that. But even if not, a drug test is not an “accusation.” It is a simple measure to preserve the integrity of the sport, just as coaches check the ages of their players to ensure that no underage atheletes are playing, or check academic and admission records to ensure no bogus students or ineligibile athletes are participating. How are such common sense measures an “accusation of guilt”?

Profiling on the scale that religious profiling would require is prohibitive. Racial profiling may be accomplished more easily, but the workload, as you mention would also be prohibitive.
Not really. As pointed out before profiling is a package of factors. Depending on the threat faced, religion may be weighted significantly in that package, but it is always balanced with other things to cut the workload and focus energy, such as age and sex. Thus the Israelis spend comparatively little time in elderly Muslim women or young children. Profiling actually helps REDUCE costs and workload.

Increased scrutiny, as with our corporate background check example, won’t catch everyone. Ergo, if it isn’t 100% effective, why is the loss of liberty justified? Also, how do you tell if someone is a Muslim? Do they fill out some card? Do we spy on them to see where they go?
Just because something isnt 100% effective doesnt justify getting rid of it. Police have not abandoned fingerprinting because it is not 100% effective. As for detecting Muslims, a skilled interrogator need not even ask the question outright. Remember he is working with a package of factors, of which religion is one, and he has other documentation on tap to verify (or not verify) certain things. Direct questions don’t always reveal information. Indirect queries, asking the same thing different ways, and noting inconsistencies and evasions are common techniques to gain information. Cards or spying are hardly necessary.

I’m not an anti-terrorism expert, and I have only heard of Israeli in circumstantial terms, I do not know what factors they profile for. In fact, the few articles I’ve read indicate that Israeli profile parameters are a well kept secret. Apparently the guards themselves are well trained in asking questions and judging responses. And yet, any Arabs, and some other foreigners, are singled out and grilled.
Actually the reason Arabs are singled out and grilled is that 99% of all terror attacks against Israelis are carried out by said Arabs. But remember that other factors like age, sex, family background enter into the picture. Comparatively little time is spent on elderly Arab women. It’s that simple. Would you have them wait around baking bagels while assorted “heroes” murder their people?

National Geographic (Female Suicide Bombers: Dying to Kill) informs us that in 2004 at least 11 female Chechen bombers struck Russia downing 2 aircraft and killing over 330 hostages. Your profile would miss these terrorists. Profiling on race or religion won’t work, and will miss high risk agents.
That may be sometimes true, but such high risk agents are comparatively rare. Of homicide bombers in Israel the figure may be less than 2%. In any case, if high risk agents are on the rise, the solution is simple- refine your profile to accomodate such and take extra precautions. Thus the Israelis now deploy an increased number of female security agents to search Arab females.

Oh, so you are saying that by profiling for Caucasian males, we wouldn’t catch all the drunk drivers that kill? What a marvelous parallel to the race and terrorism quandary we have. This is my point. Wholesale profiling of a particular race or religion won’t work, and will miss targets. And to me, the misses and the racist nature of the profile aren’t outweighed by the potential successes of the program.
Uh, actually I said such drunk driving is a problem for many OTHER races. Thus profiling only Caucasians for drunk driving is inefficient, because race is not a demonstrably clear factor in drunk driving offenders.

Racial profiling is standing in a supermarket entrance and stopping every young black man leaving the store and having them empty all their pockets, purses, and bags, and proving they’ve paid for everything, while letting the elderly white lady walk out unmolested. Racial profiling is having every Hispanic male prove he is in the country legally to work, while allowing the Koreans to go unchecked. In this case, Racial profiling is having a check-in line for Arabs, and a line for non-Arabs.
Actually all the scenarios you cite above are rare or non existent. It is a fact that supermarkets DO NOT stop every young black male leaving the store. It is a fact that every Hispanic male is NOT stopped for ID checks. In fact the opposite is the case. State and local authorities that conduct the vast majority of police stops seldom ask people to prove citizenship. It is a fact that at airports, there are NOT separate lines for Arabs and non-Arabs. Little in your scenario is credible. It’s fantasy. Let’s get back to the real world shall we?

Ed, ed, ed here we go.

– reasonable questions posed – why shouldnt members of the racial/religious group responsible for 99% of terrorism be looked at closer than others? and why should people NOT refuse to get on an airplane with folks like that aboard? –

Because singling out one race or religion over any other is against the laws of the United States. And, you toss the 99% around like you read it somewhere, care to share, or too lazy to post? Ive noticed others have used it as well and I cant google for it and get a straight answer.

– – are met with the most stunning (and long-winded) diatribes imaginable. accusations and wildly irrelevant factoids are tossed out higgledy-piggledy (KKK! enron!) in a frantic attempt to stifle the question; or more properly, the questioner. –

Irrelevant because you dont want to take time to understand the analogies being presented? It is kind of silly when you claim the examples comparing singling out one group for their beliefs compared to singling out another group for their beliefs is beyond your comprehension. The minute you can logically explain how singling out a Muslims is any different then singling out a member of the KKK, Ill leave you in peace.

– theres a book out in which the author has analyzed the lefts classic response to ideological confrontation, and it turns out the accusations and irrelevant factoids ARENT just random words strung together in amusing and ridiculous configurations by hysterical leftwing statists. its all part of the playbook! –

Right nice pronouns. Which book? Which author? Im curious to hear what one person says about a political movement, and then tries to lump everyone in that movement into one category.

– which is why a sensible why shouldnt we profile? thread gets hijacked into never-never land, full of breathless sagas of the klan, and the aryan nation, and ken lay, and big-league ballplayers: the hysterical leftwing statist is trying to derail the question. –

Hijacked? Im sorry, did you want this space all to yourself so you can spout racist bigotry about Arabs or Muslims? Dissenters on this thread have come out to explain why they feel that profiling is against the law, and unethical. We provide examples, you refuse to read. What else can we do? You attempt to demean sign-on names, we argue with facts. We debate, you post complaints about having to read too much. Thats about what I get from people against profiling and your posts. Feel free to offer a real debate. Thanks.

– but hey, dont take MY word for it. scroll up and peruse the 20-paragraph wordstorms for yourself. –

again, I wonder if you just scrolled past it, without bothering to weigh the merits of the examples and arguments people have laid out on both sides of the aisle? Enrique offers some pretty solid pro-profiling work, and his examples are logical. There have been others, I just cant think of them right now. Heh.

– for additional fun, you can also ask a kneejerk leftwing automaton the following question: since you and your ilk are so very much against any common-sense precautions to protect the flying public from homicidal islamic maniacs, what would you do about it if – god forbid – you were in charge? –

Ooooo, let me knee-jerk into this one The first line of defense at El Al counters is the people that work there. Theyre trained to ask questions that have been designed to provoke behavior patterns. Training along these lines will help us ferret out terrorists before they can get on planes, and it can be done without profiling. Just take anyone who acts in the behavior patterns mentioned above in for additional questioning and searches. (this is off the cuff but: ) Increased law enforcement awareness and training would also help. Id send police trainers and chiefs to countries beset by terrorists in a way that we are. Id promote tactic and training comparison and cooperation between England, Russia, Israel, Jordan, and India. Perhaps even Pakistan or Sri Lanka. We need to learn how the terrorists assemble their cells and get their support. Increased intelligence overseas is needed. SigInt can only glean so much. We need a metric F###ton more HumInt to really handle the terrorist problem.

There you go, Ed, off the cuff, but solutions that dont require profiling that hones in on Arabs or Muslims.

– then sit back and enjoy the tales of peace and love and KKK-bashing. just dont expect a cogent answer to the question. –

Is this where I post the kumbaya lyrics for your amusement? Nice. Talking down to the opposition again. I bet that works great with the professors, teachers, and students that you get to work with.

Enrique,

I am getting the sense that we are arguing for a similar position, from separate directions. As I understand it, you’re arguing profiling as an efficient means to ensure police resources are directed at the most-likely suspects. I don’t want to appear to be re-stating my position over and over, but I am strictly against race and religion as being the sole or even dominant factors in profiling suspects. My comment to the difference between profiling and racial profiling was an attempt to state this. Even so, I note that you seem content to simplify my arguments to the “Let’s do everybody” mantra. That said, I believe you are mischaracterizing my arguments to create straw men to attack. I’ll elaborate example by example.

– Can’t agree that background checks hurt profiling credibility at all. Such checks, like profiling, can’t cover all eventualities and contingencies such as employee theft after hire, nor do they attempt to prophesy the future perfectly. However they do screen out the most obvious cases up front as a precaution. Unlike the future, past history can be at least looked at with some verification. Any business that neglects such elementary precautions will suffer painful losses. That is why even schools screen teachers for prior criminal histories particularly offences against children. Would you as a parent throw background screening overboard because a few teachers will behave inappropriately with children after hire? This lacks common sense. Screening is a form of profiling takes care of certain key factors first, and the general pattern of those who pass successful screening is that they behave appropriately. –

Two points here, first off: you are saying that background checks screen the most likely suspects, but aren’t 100% effective, right? In business and private concerns, fallibility can be tolerated. In matters of law high probability usually doesn’t cut it. Secondly, given the use of background checks in attempting to weed out risky individuals: since the corporate officers that have committed fraud against their corporation are 99% of the time older white men, you would have no objections to adding age and ethnicity to background checks, and screen out older white men that apply in all cases, correct? Of course previous behavior comes in to play, but I’m nearly certain that if you check the histories of the corporate officers that committed the most damaging corporate frauds, going back to the S&L scandals, I don’t think you’ll find much in their backgrounds to implicate them. Similarly, background screening (racial profiling) for young, Arab, Muslims won’t catch the persons most likely to commit the acts we’ve had to bear witness to.

I do not dispute the effectiveness in background checks in weeding out probable risks. However, I do contend that adding race or religion to the host of factors checks does not increase the likelihood of capturing terrorists. In fact, I believe that adding either of those elements to a profile unfairly casts the eye of suspicion on that race and that religion as a whole.

– No professional agency profiles solely on one factor. If a profile is based solely on race it is obviously unreasonable and also ineffective because then you would have to profile sub populations like infants and elderly women who are not at all likely to be involved in crime or terrorism. The fact is that no agency profiles solely on race. It would be a waste of time. Instead race is one factor that is often important. Policemen watching out for muggers in Washington DC would obviously consider race as one factor, along with age, time of day, area etc.. In similar manner, security personnel on airlines do not merely scrutinize people based on “Middle Eastern appearance.” If they did, they might be pulling in a number of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans or white Eastern Europeans. Profiling uses ethnicity, nationality, religion, places traveled, etc as a legitimate package of factors to consider. Courts have upheld that approach against the argument to get rid of profiling altogether. As for the other factors you mention they may indeed be relevant. –

Certainly no profiling attempt can be based on single factors. That said, your mugger example applies in a criminal sense, but is irrelevant to a discussion on terrorism. Let’s examine your example, and I’ll demonstrate why it is inapplicable:

Muggers in D.C.
Muggers, first implies that a crime was committed. Someone was mugged, yes? Yes. The crime is reported, and in that criminal report, the witness mentions a race. There, the race becomes important. The race is absolutely a factor, if the victim of the crime reports a race. And here, we can catch the criminal before they have a chance to commit more crimes. This is a valid use of race in an attempt to apprehend a criminal. This example is not congruent with the idea of using race and religion to catch suicide bombers and terrorists.
Bombers on a plane.
The terrorist bomber has already made peace with himself that he will not outlive his act. There is no one to apprehend afterward. This is where racial profiling doesn’t work. In order to stop terrorist bombers, you must catch them before they act. You cannot prosecute them afterward. The action of using race or religion as a guide to process people, searching for bombers, implies that all persons of those sub-groups are potential bombers, and are bombers until proven otherwise. Even after you weed out the “most-likely nots” (like grandmothers and children), you still are telling a very large sub-group of Arab-looking people that they are bombers until proven otherwise. This thought countermands the ideals of the United States and is impermissible to me.

– If for example a series of young homosexual men report being raped by other men, who are police gonna start investigating first- pregnant women in the hood? or other gays frequenting bars, clubs or bathhouses where said young homosexuals may have been? Apply some common sense… –

Your example fails when you consider that police will not canvass an area and simply ask “Are you gay?” Especially when all someone has to say is “No”. “No? Thanks, bye.” Police WILL look for men that match the description, but they won’t ask people if they are gay. They’ll look at people who frequent “gay bars”, but again, won’t ask if they’re gay. Similarly, we can inspect people that have traveled to certain regions, but I believe we are not allowed to ask, “Are you Muslim, sir?” Or, “Are you a Muslim Arab that’s within this age-group, sir?” These sorts of questions, and the implied thoughts behind them, however they might manifest, are simply illegal. They violate our right to equal protection and our right of protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

– There need not be heavy demand that other CEOs condemn the Ken Lays because they obviously do, and indeed several have dammed the practices at Enron unequivocally. The same is not the case with numerous Muslim leaders, religious and secular, who to the contrary, frequently praise and support terrorists and their actions. They may do it openly or covertly. That is the key difference. Numerous madrasses, schools and mosques openly propagate violence from “Londonistan” to Calcutta. Fronts in the form of assorted Muslim charities also perform the same functions plus terrorist financing less openly. Regardless of the approach, such places receive generous funding from the chief custodians of Islam’s holy places, “our friends the Saudis”, who for decades have been promoting the radical Wahabi brand of Islamism. As regards so-called “moderate” Muslim organizations, one of the most prominent, CAIR, has had three of its former leaders convicted of links to terrorist organizations. There is a vast world of difference between your example and the realities of radical Islam. –

So CEO’s can be assumed to be against corporate fraud, but the Muslim community cannot? You cite numerous schools, mosques and fatwas issued in favor of terrorism. You also mention Saudi Arabia, and the funding that directly or indirectly supports terrorism. But what of the Muslim clerics in England, Jerusalem, Jordan, and in Asia that spoke out against the acts? I see a debate in the Islamic community, based on articles, scholarly works and press conferences. The loud and violent faction does not seem to be the dominant faction… only the one heard from most. You conclude that Secular and Religious members “ may do it openly or covertly ”. That begs the question if Islamic community members may practice their support covertly, then corporate officers may support corporate fraud covertly. The arguments you make to cast all members of Islam as suspicious is the same reasoning that anyone with an axe to grind can indict any group in America. This sort of reasoning can put anyone under suspicion, and that isn’t acceptable.

What about the Mormon faith? Do we judge/ discriminate/ profile all Mormons based on the acts of the Polygamist sect? The actions of few should never condemn the group as a whole. We take that approach with transgressions in the military (the accused are just bad apples), American tourists abroad face this sort of discrimination now (because of the acts of our government) and we resent it. What ethical grounds do we have to indict the Muslim faith based on the actions of Radicals?

– Your analogy is flawed because not every American is under suspicion as a terrorist, nor is every athlete under suspicion for drug use. Most elementary, junior high or high school athletes are not under clouds of drug suspicion, and they make up the bulk of the sports playing population. –

I’ll refine the sports analogy in the same way you refined the justification for profiling a race or a religion. As not every Muslim is under suspicion, not every athlete is under suspicion. Just as you say we need not profile Grandmothers and children, we need not profile children, and adult leagues for the elderly. That leaves Professional and Collegiate sports (and you’ll note, in my previous example, that I referred to Major League Baseball and the Tour de France… a professional league and a professional event). And now, concurrent to the idea of racial and religious profiling, is it ethical to accuse every professional athlete of drug use (by subjecting every one of them to a drug test before a professional event), because a sizable minority resort to drug enhancements? I say no to that for the same reason I say no to racial and religious profiling. It presumes the subject is guilty, until proven innocent.

– Testing several million of such youths under your “let’s do everybody” approach borders on the insane. –

I find your “let’s do everybody” attachment is misleading. It may be convenient to lump it in that category, but the more I read that, the more incorrect it sounds to me. I never advocated testing everybody. I have advocated that if we blanket profile a race or religion, and justify it, then we must be prepared to debate the cause to profile any group. You cannot single out one race or one religion for scrutiny on the basis that the race or religion justifies that scrutiny. That’s just plain bigotry.

– Even college athletes do not undergo widespread drug testing- mostly Div I & 2 football and Div I track and field participants- less than 15,000 athletes out of tens of thousands playing in other schools and other sports, and their numbers far exceed those playing professionally. A limited number of athletes are thus under suspicion, but that doesn’t make profiling less credible. To the contrary, testing of those under suspicion is itself a form of profiling that STRENGTHENS the credibility of the sport, ensuring that performances are based primarily on effort, skill and training, not chemical enhancement. –

And yet, in the eyes of the world, no one who participates is considered permanently clean. No matter how often you test clean, there is always another test. It may strengthen the credibility of the sport, but it ruins the credibility of the participants. They’re no longer like the rest of us. They’re constantly under suspicion. And this is how you propose that Muslims live?

– But even going with your “let’s do everybody” comparison, even if everyone in a population was suspect, it would call for MORE profiling not less, if only as a way to manage the workload of those who have to process that population. So for example, since every passenger boarding a plane can theoretically be considered a terrorists, running background checks and attempting to question them all for 30 minutes would be totally inefficient and ineffective. –

This one of the reasons why racial and religious profiling won’t work. Thank you for explaining. Profiling on the scale that religious profiling would require is prohibitive. Racial profiling may be accomplished more easily, but the workload, as you mention would also be prohibitive.

–Profiling also STRENGTHENS the credibility of the security process, ensuring that 2 year old children or elderly black women don’t chew up scarce personnel time. Effort and energy can be concentrated on more likely targets like young male Muslims or young male Britons who have traveled to Pakistan within the last 2 years. Far from profiling being an absurdity, it is a demonstrably efficient use of resources, and a relatively effective way of targeting. The Israelis profile all the time. They have to, and you can bet they are not spending much time on elderly Palestinian women. –

That isn’t strengthening the credibility of the security process, however I concede that it would make the process more efficient in catching targeted ethnic or religious groups… and ignore other groups that commit terror.

Strengthening the credibility would mean preventing more terrorist actions. Increased scrutiny, as with our corporate background check example, won’t catch everyone. Ergo, if it isn’t 100% effective, why is the loss of liberty justified? Also, how do you tell if someone is a Muslim? Do they fill out some card? Do we spy on them to see where they go? Unless you know of some super-perceptive people that can see Muslim faith on sight? The example of profiling for someone having visited a certain place for a specific amount of time does not involve race nor religion. For the sake of argument I’ll say that seems like a valid profile. Authorities can still profile effectively without having to base profiles on race or religion. Your examples don’t disprove that statement.

– Neither are we stopping or restricting every Muslim from boarding planes. –

No, but you would be stopping and restricting them in airports and from going about their lives as any other citizen may.

– As stated previously, a package of factors is usually used. Travel to Pakistan or a number of countries known as heavy terrorist recruitment centers is one of those red flags. So is age, religion, family background etc. A profile is a package. The Israelis have had to become proficient in the use of such packages. It’s literally a matter of life and death. One does not have to wait until the bomber murders a dozen people to start the profiling process. That is madness. Law enforcement has not waited for assorted “Christian” terrorists to act. They have put those profiled under surveillance and moved in on them when the time was right, preventing even worse tragedies. Also in the real world, claimed Christianity is not the only profiling factor. A package of factors is used- like individuals or organizations’ websites showing how to make anti-clinic bombs. As for non-racial profiling of supposed Christian terrorists, who says such profiling has not taken place? To the contrary, such people tend to be white males, and authorities have rightly concentrated on that, rather than say rounding up elderly black men or white teen girls, as your absurd “let’s do everybody” approach would have it. –

I’m not an anti-terrorism expert, and I have only heard of Israeli in circumstantial terms, I do not know what factors they profile for. In fact, the few articles I’ve read indicate that Israeli profile parameters are a well kept secret. Apparently the guards themselves are well trained in asking questions and judging responses. And yet, any Arabs, and some other foreigners, are singled out and grilled. The Israelis can do this because their laws allow them to. We do not have their laws. We are allowed to profile for names, for occupations, for living arrangements, for previous visits, for criminal records. In the case of the Christian terrorists, we had more than circumstantial evidence that allowed us to find them. The police didn’t have to resort to simply profiling every white Christian out there because they had other evidence to go on. And even when you denigrate the suspect by typing “claimed Chritianity” you support my premise by identifying that blanket profiling of Christians may not have worked if in fact the person was claiming to be Christianity solely to act on their convictions. Maybe the terrorist wasn’t Christian and only claimed to be. The police could not have relied upon a religious profile to have caught him.

– Not really. If race or religion are clear data points in the crimes or offences committed, and they are combined with other valid, specific factors, it is an efficient use of law enforcement resources. –

Hypothetically, sure, they would contribute to an efficient use of law enforcement resources. However, in the real world that you alluded to above, 100% of all terrorists are not Arab. 100% of all terrorists are not Muslim. 100% of all terrorists are not male. 100% of all terrorists are not between the ages of 18 and 45.

National Geographic (Female Suicide Bombers: Dying to Kill) informs us that in 2004 at least 11 female Chechen bombers struck Russia downing 2 aircraft and killing over 330 hostages. Your profile would miss these terrorists. Profiling on race or religion won’t work, and will miss high risk agents.

– By the way, it is not only young caucasian males that have a penchant for drinking, driving and killing. Young males of every race are disproportionately involved in drinking and driving. As for killing, young black males lead all other races, with murder being one of their main causes of death. I would argue that to allow such a high murder rate and not use one of the most efficient means of stopping it is the height of “bigotry”. In fact, such murder rates are a racist’s dream- since they produce more dead Negroes. Police authorities whose “profiling” reduces the number of young black men dying from murders are actually sterling examples of ANTI-BIGOTRY and ANTI-RACISM. –

Oh, so you are saying that by profiling for Caucasian males, we wouldn’t catch all the drunk drivers that kill? What a marvelous parallel to the race and terrorism quandary we have. This is my point. Wholesale profiling of a particular race or religion won’t work, and will miss targets. And to me, the misses and the racist nature of the profile aren’t outweighed by the potential successes of the program.

– If profiling was a race or religion only deal I would agree- but as shown above, it is not. It is a package deal, even in Israel. For example, while female homicide bombers have been used, they are a miniscule proportion. Its mostly young men doing the “heroes” work, and most of the security effort is concentrated on such men, as it should be. They like the women, fit certain demographic and psychological profiles. As for unreasonable search and seizure, that is well covered by probably cause and reasonable suspicion. Few police officers would bother pulling over an elderly black woman pushing a cart of groceries home from the supermarket. They will however tend to take action if they see young black males hanging out on a street corner known for drug sales. And that’s a good thing because such drug sales and the fallout in crime and wasted lives they bring are a plague on the black community. Law enforcement actions that hurt and discourage such sales and fallout are not racism. To the contrary such actions represent commendable ANTI-RACISM. –

And you are saying that if young Hispanic or young Caucasians were standing on that corner they wouldn’t get picked up? That isn’t racial profiling. Racial profiling is standing in a supermarket entrance and stopping every young black man leaving the store and having them empty all their pockets, purses, and bags, and proving they’ve paid for everything, while letting the elderly white lady walk out unmolested. Racial profiling is having every Hispanic male prove he is in the country legally to work, while allowing the Koreans to go unchecked. In this case, Racial profiling is having a check-in line for Arabs, and a line for non-Arabs. Racial profiling is asking every person if they are practicing Muslims, and then setting them aside for additional questioning while letting every non-Muslim through. If you cannot see the inherent racism here, or conflate that somehow to Anti-racism, or explain how rises to probable cause, I’ll stop discussing this issue.

Cheers! Have fun with that, I’ll check in tomorrow.