Well I did respect your wishes not to post your face on the internet. So I cut off your head from the picture (from Philly last year) that I posted of you and TIS above.

When did I say their rights are more important? The point I am trying to get across is that they deserve an equal right to transportation as any Caucasian-Christian American... Hence my exact words, "If you're going to search one group, search them all".



It's true the majority domestic terrorism is performed by those of Muslim decent. So, therefore, search any Muslim-descendants so long as probable-cause is involved. But the percentage of Muslims committing terrorism is rather low, in retrospect. When the majority of those of Muslim decent begin committing terrorism, I'll support your creepy, elitest methods of searching completely based upon race.



"Act" and "casualty" are not synonymous.



I wouldn't say that. Hard-working? Alright, maybe most of them, but you're counting the ones that were probably sitting around, procrastinating and neglecting their work when all of a sudden--bam--the local air-transit is stuck over in corporate accounting.



Oh, come on, don't try to insult me by throwing in a formality.

I'm gone for a day and all these guys start jumping all over SB

How is it that I miss out on all the fun?

Well there's jumping all over her, and then there's "jumping ALL OVER her."

Right Boy Toy?


Me, all I did was throw her compliments in this topic.

You were either peeing in the street or busy cleaning the bird shit off of your car.

Cardi,

You make me laugh

Ah, I was waiting for that one.

The traditional "the biggest threat in this country is the White right-wing Christian lunatic" terrorists.

I wondered how long it would take before someone in the thread put the Bible Belt on par with Al Qaeda.

---

For the study:

ALL US MUSLIMS:

13% say suicide bombings are "ever" justified. This combines "often" and "rarely."

US MUSLIMS UNDER 18-29:

26% say suicide bombings are "ever" justified.

US MUSLIMS OVER 30:

9% say suicide bombings are "ever" justified.

You bring in the "all men are created equal" and how racial profiling would be unconstitutional, as if we have done Muslims a great wrong by simply acknowledging the fact that their community churns out anti-American malcontents the way Wal-Mart does lower prices.



No one is denying them the right to travel.

But like I said, the baby, the grandma, the mother, etc., don't they all have a right to travel safely? Again, I'm tired of essentially putting innocent lives at risk so we don't piss some group of people off, even though that's exactly what's happening.

And furthermore, taking an airplane is a privilege, not a right. Yes, you pay for your ticket, but if you're a fucking lunatic and airport security stops you, you won't be flying. It's not an entitlement.





Foreign AND domestic.




Compared to what? Rather low? So what, 3500+ people dead since 2001 is an anomaly, an aberration?

Or, it could be just plain fucking retarded, which I suspect.

Creepy, elitist? No. Common sense? Yes. Did I say we were giving white people passes, and only searching Muslims? No. So go back, read, and you'll see my "methods" are not "completely based upon race."



So the JFK plot that just was taken down - because nobody died, we should just, you know, ignore it, right? Because, after all, it was only an "act" of terrorism that wasn't executed.




What the fuck are you on about?

Best,
Double-J

I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to f**kin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

That's absolutely true. You can be denied your right to travel for cause. Bizarre behavior, drunkenness, overt belligerence and disorderly conduct among other things, hav gotten people of all races kicked off planes, trains, and buses, as well as diners, bars, and sports arenas.

But to subject Arab Americans or Muslim Americans to additional scrutiny on the basis of their origin without a belief, supported by specific knowledge, that they pose a likelihood of mayhem is constitutionally impermissible.

While it may be de iure unconstitutional, I'm sure racial, ethnic or religious profiling exists on a de facto basis among many law enforcement and governmental agencies.

This isn't just for Muslim/Arab-Americans, it's for all travelers, and like I said, country of origin should be one of the biggest factors.

Secondly, we have specific knowledge - we are at war with radical Islam. If you have nothing to hide...

I have no problem with subjecting all passengers on planes to scrutiny. Then it would not be racial profiling.

The specific knowledge, to which I was referring, involved something specifically known about the individual traveler that would be detained beyond the normal course of inspection.


That we are at war in Iraq, battling an insurgency, comprised almost entirely of those adhering to radical Islam, is true. We are also fighting this war shoulder to shoulder with Iraqi Muslims as well.

I said "samll possibility that one in a million". You are comparing it with "the biggest threat in the country". Dude, looks like you were really waiting to prove a non-existent point. Please don't bother. How desperate


I didn't. Maybe you are. I have nothing to talk about it.



OK we are now talking of "ever" and "rarely" people, right? Everyone here knows that you support the Hiroshima attack, where you said civilian attack is ok if there is a greater cause. You had you chance to explain your "greater cause" in great detail over several posts. We don't know what these people had to say in in their justification. Since we are neglecting the context altogether, I will follow the same and say that you support attack on innocent civilians ever/rarely. So you are no better than the 1 in 4 muslims. So you should be the one subjected to EXTRA scrutiny in airports.

Scenerio :

Two middle eastern travelers purchase one way tickets, using cash, to board a flight.

Should they be pulled aside and scrutinized by security?

If they are, is it considered racial profiling?

If they do that to all foreign passengers with one way tickets, then it is not racial profiling. If they do it only for middle-eastern passengers, it is profiling. I don't know about cash though. In many countries, credit cards are not popular. When I came here two years ago, I had bought a one way ticket to america with cash. I wasn't expecting to return within a year, so I did not buy a return ticket. I also did not have enough credit limit on my card to buy the international ticket. There are thousands of people like me who travel with genuine reasons with your scenario. If you think that is a high risk group, then the check should be done on everyone, including europeans, australians, asians and africans, not just middle-east asia.

Point taken. However, it was not 19 African Americans, 19 Italians, 19 Hasidic Jews or 19 Chinese people who hijacked tose planes and declared Islamic Jihad. It was 19 middle easterners. And therefore I believe that at this point, if a middle easterner purchases a one way ticket with cash, and he is scrutinized because of it, it is not racial profiling. It is criminal profiling. It's part of the M.O. of those who attacked this nation. Should others of other races who purchase a one way ticket with cash also be scrutinized? Absolutely. At this point in the game we don't know who really is a radical Muslim or who is a sympathizer.

If the middle easterner fits the M.O. of how things were done by former middle easterners who attacked this country, then he should be scrutinized based on criminal profiling. It's not racial profiling.


On the morning of September 11th 2001, Michael Tuohey, a ticket agent at Portland International Airport, notices that both Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari have $2,500 first-class, one-way tickets. He later comments, "You don’t see many of those. I thought they looked like two Arab terrorists but then I berated myself for the stereotype and did nothing."

So it's the MO of the 9/11 hijackers. That, in my opinion, becomes grounds for criminal profiling and is in no way racial profiling.

What is MO?

It's not racial profiling if the same would be done for anybody else purchasing a one way ticket for cash. And I think it should be. What you describe, to me anyway, is suspicious. No matter if the person paying cash for a one way ticket (especially one not checking luggage) is green with purple polka dots, they should be considered suspicious, and should have been LONG before September 11, 2001.

It also might just be a man or woman who is flying to their new home and all their belongings are in the moving van, so they don't need any luggage, and they don't need a round trip ticket, and they paid cash for their ticket because they accidentally packed their credit cards.

HOWEVER, I would not want to take that chance.

I'll give you an analogy.

For 6 months straight the New Jersey Turnpike State Troopers have been making arrests where drugs were being smuggled through the state.

In every arrest, the driver was an African American and would drive UNDER the speed limit thinking that he would stay under the radar by going slow.

Now let's say tonight there are 5 cars driving in the right lane under the speed limit. 4 of those cars have white drivers and one has a black driver. You can only pull one of the cars over. What is the MO here? Who do you pull over first? Which car detained will give you the best odds of catching the drug smuggler?

The way to figure out the best odds of catching the right guy is to go by past intelligence. Go by the MO of those arrested in the past 6 months.

It's not racial profiling by any means. It's using your common sense and putting ALL the facts together about who and how past crimes were committed in this same scenerio, and going on those facts.

It's called Criminal Profiling.

Modus Operandi or way of operation.

Thanks Klydon.

DC, I agree if you can identify high risk group on a well formed criterion(well is the keyword IMO), then you can criminally profile them.
Are you saying that being arab/muslim male of certain age is the only way to describe the terrorists? That is certainly not true. That is a ill-formed criterion. I am not sure if you are aware, but the Visa process for all middle-eastern countries routinely takes 6 months or so. The US embassy does a thorough background check and only then grants visa. This is not true for all countires. BTW I am talking about post 9/11 not when Atta came in. I was given Visa across the counter in 2005, but my Iranian friends have several months of waiting. This includes grandmas, parents, everyone, not just under-30 males. After doing all these checks, now imagine the humiliation of an innocent person if some passenger were to report to the airline staff that they feel suspicious because he has a turban or beard or some such ridiculous thing. And FYI, they don't allow anyone to come to US to study nuclear engineering, space, aircraft related degrees etc after 9/11. Whosoever enters US now with a valid Visa has already undergone huge amounts of checks (with exhaustive profiling -racial or otherwise). There is no need for common public to take up investigation based on thier prejudices. Or for that matter even airport authorities, unless they have some specific information about the person. If they want to play safe, then check everyone. That is really safe.

Not at all. Where did I imply that?

I am sorry, it seemed from your 9/11 example.


OK, then what are your criteria for a reasonable criminal profiling for probable terrorists? Something that will work on a majority of the criminals and rarely cause inconvenience to the innocents?

It is unconstitutional to single out any person solely based on their race or ethnicity. It is, however, permissible to use race, in conjunction with other information, if race is one of a number of characteristics used to describe a particular suspect.

In the case of trying to prevent future terrorist attacks by middle eastern Muslim exstremists, who HAVE already attacked the western world on numerous occassions, who've continued to try and attack the western world, and who have openly declared Islamic Jihad on the western world, I think that race has to be a consideration, along with other factors, i.e. one way ticket buying, etc., in determining if someone may be a risk to the security of others.

That is where the problem is. Terrorists can buy two way tickets with credit cards. Not a rare possibility. Infact, I can't think of any criterion that will work well on a majority of criminals and exclude majority of innocents. Though I don't agree with you, let us keep race as one factor. What else, please list. Because avoiding this list is avoiding the important question. Do we have any objective criteria today? Remember that all the middle eastern visitors have been background checked (after 9/11) before they are granted visa. They don't get multiple entry visas either if they belong to middle-east. Again please list your criteria.

There is no question that profiling is going on, and to some extent it should be allowed, even if it is not the stated policy of the TSA. The real danger I foresee is that the idea of blowing up airplanes is going to spread like a cancer, and expremists of all stripes could start using the tactic. Unfortunately there are some reallly crazy people out there (take that idiot who flew all over the place with a case of TB) who may do harm.

I would think there should be some kind of psychological profiling as well....you can tell a lot by someone's body language.

I say we bite the bullet and get a database of eye scans and fingerprints for those of us who are frequent fliers and who don't want or need the hassle of removing shoes etc. we really have no privacy left anymore anyway, so whats the difference?

You've also made it a point to say that its a small minority of the Muslim community that would participate in terrorist attacks, so I don't believe it is nonexistent. Desperate, no. Accurate, yes.





Naturally.



"Ever" and "rarely" are, by the study's own definition, people who support suicide bombings, according to their own totals. It's not like I made it up.

I support Hiroshima. Totally different situation, fwiw. Just because you don't agree with my argument, which I had supported with facts and evidence, doesn't make it a 1:1 situation, nor does it mean I advocate suicide bombings, because they are completely different. You want to have another Hiroshima debate? Revive the thread.

Furthermore, I'd like you to explain to me the "justification" in blowing up some innocent civilians on an airplane, thanks.

And your spin isn't going to work, but thanks for trying.

Bottom line question (for those who disagree with me): Would racial profiling not make it more difficult for Muslim terrorists to carry out plots against American flights? If not, why?

Never did I say "the biggest threat in the country is white/christian....." So inaccurate.



good. I didn't make that comparison.


I didn't say you made it up. But the context or detailed reasoning is not presented


We agreed to disagree in that thread. I agree that it is not a 1:1 situation. But I just gave you an example to tell you how wrong things will look when presented out of context. ,that the "1 in 4" number is grossly incorrect.


Sorry, I don't need to give you any justification because I was not one of them who responded in the survey for "rarely/ever" option. Infact, I don't support suicide bombings for any reason, not even for any greater good. If you remember my argument in hiroshima thread, I said that killing civilians is not justified even if it serves a greater good. I only said that those who responded to the survey might have a justification, like you have for the hiroshima case. And those justifications, if any were not published. Don't twist the argument.


I didn't spin anything. It is just that when I put you in the same category as those who responded for rarely/ever, you started giving a spin on all arguments. Stop that and respond to logic.


I am one of those who disagree with you on racial profiling. So I'll answer your 'bottom line' question.

Yes I agree that racial profiling will make it difficult for terrorists to do any harm. But it will also make it difficult for vast majority of innocent people belonging to those races to lead a dignified honorable living with racial profiling going on. It is racist and unacceptable in a tolerant society.

Uh... Equal Rights Amendment? Racial profiling is (as in, factually) unconstitutional. This is basically a mild and masked form of racial segregation. We are segregating the effort for saftey. I actually think your point was a bit weak, you can't really stir up enough racial bias to divert us from the preamble, especially when its foundation so deeply overtones this subject.



No, just making it a hassle to access that right.



I've always been in favor of not pissing someone off when they are holding a weapon... I'm pretty sure that guy doesn't appreciate members of his race being singled out based on variables they have no control over.



It's a right, but like any right, it can be abused. If that right is abused, action must surely be made. But the right to freedom of speech is probably the easiest right to abuse; all you really have to do, in terms of textbook example, is go into a crowded theater and yell "fire!" Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the majority of people going into crowded theater's and yelling "fire!" are 12 year old girls who listen to My Chemical Romance. But, is there any sort of crackdown on 13 year old girls? Are we cutting their tongues off? It'd be an over-reaction to do such. And an unjust one, at that.



Most certainly. America seems to be getting the most carried away in this racial profiling business. Kind of like we assumed all socialists to be enemies during the bulk of the 20th century, or the Japanese-American's to be tyrannical during WWII, or all Southerner's/Northerner's in the Civil War, all British during the Revolution, and so on. America seems to have a problem in generalizing and type-casting in times of war and distress.



Again. You're confusing "acts of terrorism" with "casualties". And don't give me some sort of bullshit spiel to the likes of "acting on terrorism means creating casualties!" I'm talking acts of terrorism. This entire thread is talking acts of terrorism. Not casualties. Is the United States trying to decrease the number of casualties from say, 5,000 in a given period of time to 3,000 in a given period or time, or are they trying to eliminate the number of acts of terrorism? Casualties are casualties... It'd be preferable to eliminate ALL possible casualties. But we're going straight for the jugular... Eliminate ACTS of terrorism and you eliminate CASUALTIES of terrorism. We're just not going about eliminating terrorism in a very civilized or intelligent manner.



It's just as retarded as racially profiling when we've seen court case after court case dealing with civil liberties in regards to race, and we've spent decades working for racial equality, have had to watch some of the greatest activists in the history of time die for these rights (Ghandi, Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, etc, Robert Kennedy, etc.) and so on.



Ok, so, we're seperating one racial group from another, and treating them differently in a public facility... How is this not elitest. And it totally is race related. If the majority of terrorists were black, we'd be treating blacks differently. If the majority of terrorists were Native American, we'd be treating Native Americans differently. It's RACIAL PROFILING. PROFILING based on RACE. How is it not RACIAL? The statistics add up, but not all Muslims are terrorists. So, statistics or no statistics, it is most deffinately in relation to race. There is no probable cause to back these searches up other than social generalizations, and these generalizations happen to be based upon race and religion.



When did I say we should ignore it? I said that there are actually few acts of terrorism per quota, and you retorted by restating the figure of casualties lost on 9/11. This was totally irrelevant. How many acts of terror occurred on that day? If we want to count each plane, four? five? And those all stem from the same plan of action, so we could easily count them as one act, but for your sake, we'll count each plane that crashed. So, four planes or so, roughly 3,500 dead. Those are two different figures relating to two very different things. 34 students died in the Columbine school shooting. There were two shooters, both acting upon the same whacked out "cause". So that's one act. But by your standards, this is like saying there were 34 different shooters, 34 separate acts of school shootings. On September 11, there were a few planes and thousands of casualties. Not thousands of planes. If we had stopped one, or two, or five, or ten terrorists, we would have stopped one act, and saved thousands of lives. But that's still one act. I'm sort of droning, I know, but I just want to make sure we're all clear on the definitions of very basic and casual vocabulary.

The JFK terrorists should be tried (for their crimes, not their race), sentenced to life, and made an example of--even though we'll be complete hypocrite and give them the death sentence. But oh well, such is life.




Never mind, I'll try not to use clever satire.