Profiling: It’s Just Good Police Work
In the wake of the bombings in London, the dialog about how we can prevent such attacks is again being moved to the front burner. One major component of the answer is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but they dare not say it outright for fear of the Political Correctness Policemen Policepersons.
We should look to profiling.
“Oh no!” I hear you say. “We can’t treat certain people to increased scrutiny. That’s just not fair!” I agree. It’s not fair to law-abiding Muslims that the vast majority of terror attacks are carried out by their religious and ethnic brethren. It’s also not fair to law-abiding citizens for governments to ignore that fact.
Consider this scenario: 12 people are getting on a plane. 6 are men of European descent, and 6 are men of Middle-Eastern descent. You are required to search half of the men. Which ones do you search? Your answer depends on what you hope to accomplish. If you hope to search the people who are most likely to pose a threat, you’ll search the 6 Middle-Eastern men. If you are more concerned with making your search selection appear random, you’ll search 3 men from each group. It’s not that all Muslims are terrorists. Far from it. It’s that almost all terrorists are Muslim, so in any group of people, the Muslim male (or sometimes even the Muslim female) is the one who is most likely to be a terrorist. If you do not search the people who are most likely to be a terrorist, you have a goal other than maximizing the safety of citizens.
I’m aware that this must be very frustrating to the majority of Muslims who are good law-abiding people. They tend to get very angry when they feel that they are being singled out. That anger is good, but is usually misdirected. Why not get angry at those people who are creating the stereotype? Getting angry at the people who are merely observing and utilizing a statistical fact is pointless.
You hear stories about old white ladies getting strip-searched, or honest-to-God Senators being given the “turn your head and cough” treatment in airport terminals. And people actually praise this bullshit. Why should the searching of a Senator or an elderly white woman make you feel safe? These are the people who are least likely out of anyone to be a terrorist or to be a threat to safety. Searching them does nothing to make you safe, and diverts attention away from the actual people who could pose a threat!
Americans in particular get queasy when people are singled out because of race. The tendency is to think that anything that is race-related is racist. This is false. First off, it has more to do with geography than race, it is just hard to judge geography without race. Second, it’s a numbers game. Almost all the people who want to attack us are Middle-Eastern males between the ages of 18 and 40. Until every person matching this description is subject to increased scrutiny, it is madness to be searching anyone else. We’re not in the business of protecting feelings. We’re not the ones who decided that the vast majority of terrorists are Middle-Eastern males. It’s a bleeding fact. If we had the manpower, we’d treat everyone with increased scrutiny. But we don’t have unlimited resources, so we have to concentrate our efforts where they’ll do the most good.
If you are of Middle-Eastern descent and you are angered by the prospect of being singled out at airports because of your ethnicity, take a deep breath, and go visit the Free Muslims Coalition and make your opposition to Islamic extremism and Islamic terror heard. If you help stop terrorism, the stereotype will cease to be valid. Keep in mind, even though it may seem like an unjust inconvenience to you, it makes you safer. Terrorists have no qualms about killing Muslims who do not share their jihadist views.
are the people who are least likely out of anyone to be a terrorist or to be a threat to safety. Searching them does nothing to make you safe, and diverts attention away from the actual people who could pose a threat! (emphasis – Hyscience) Read the complete post… HT – Wizbang On the issue of profiling, Naked Pundit is adamant, if not insistant: And here’s a little review for any nutjob liberals out there … Don’t try to argue with me about what group has been responsible for the VAST majority of terrorist
Profiling: It�s Just Good Police Work [ Tempus Fug… : “In the wake of the bombings in London, the dialog about how we can prevent such attacks is again being moved to the front burner. One major component of the answer is on the tip of everyone�s
Mark Jaquith : In the wake of the bombings in London, the dialog about how we can prevent such attacks is again being moved to the front burner. One major component of the answer is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but they dare not say it
Profiling Is Good Police Work
Mark Jaquith: In the wake of the bombings in London, the dialog about how we can prevent such attacks is again being moved to the front burner. One major component of the answer is on the tip of everyone’s tongue,…
I have a friend of Middle Eastern descent. During the halcyon days before 2001, he told me about travelling in Europe during the ’80s, when Muslim terrorists were hijacking airplanes. He said every time he went to get on a plane, he would be pulled out of line and frisked.
I asked if this offended him, and he said, “No, there were people who looked like me who would gladly have hijacked the plane and killed people on board. I didn’t mind a little inconvenience if it kept people like that off the plane.”
That strikes me as the sane approach to someone who gets caught up by profiling. If a perfectly innocent Muslim finds himself on a plane piloted by religious lunatics, headed for a skyscraper, will it be any consolation to him that he was not inconvenienced or embarrassed by being searched?
[...] Mark Jaquith: In the wake of the bombings in London, the dialog about how we can prevent such attacks is again being moved to the front burner. One major component of the answer is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but they dare not say it outright for fear of the Political Correctness Policemen Policepersons. [...]
NYCLU sues city over subway searches
The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed suit against the city, alleging that its random bag searches are unconstitutional even while doing nothing to prevent terrorism.
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[...] are most likely to be a terrorist, you have a goal other than maximizing the safety of citizens. # posted by Nick Mackey @ 1:59 PM postCount(‘112094296935983357′); |postCountTB(‘112094296935983357′); | [...]
[...] Many people argue against profiling, calling it racial discrimination or worse, but as Mark Jaquith wrote shortly after the 7/7 London bombings, in this case it’s just good police work. [...]
Today’s links 2005 07 10 Sunday…
Come back for the Carnival of Liberty tomorrow! 6 AM Eastern time! In honor of the Carnival of Liberty, I’ll be skipping my Daily Links post and also my regular weekday consumer education post tomorrow, but both are planned to……