Racial Profiling

[quote]Vroom, how much courage are you gonna show in avoiding committing a “wrong” act when you are directly affected by terrorism? I’m not talking the WTC or something indirectly which affected all of America. I mean when you are almost killed, a loved one is directly affected, either killed or seriously injured.

I understand your viewpoint, but your courage in the face of terrorism is not going to prevent that nail laden C4 strapped homicide bomber from killing you and the people around you. We are always so worried about offending someone, oh no we can’t do that they may be offended. GET OVER IT!![/quote]

Snipe,

I hear you. I’ll tell you this, my viewpoints rarely change on things. I really hope if I faced such a situation I’d have the courage to stick with my convictions.

I’m not suggesting that courage will stop an attack – I have never tried to. Anyway, if you’ve been paying attention you’d know that my comments are not based on the avoidance of offending anyone.

PAY ATTENTION!

snipeout,

not everyone against racial profiling on airports is a “bleeding-heart, lily-livered liberal”. Btw, did I get this right? Is the opposite a gun-totin, cousin -bangin, conservative? If so, I finally understand how this whole thing works. Get this, right now we have five different parties in the austrian parliament. Scary, huh?

Racial profiling at airports makes a little bit of sense IF you have to control the airports at all, which in my opinion you don?t. Because controlling the airports is not the case of the goverment actually doing something constructive, it?s the goverment wanting to BE SEEN doing something, ANYTHING really, AFTER the shit hit the fan i.e 9/11.

By implementing measures that really do not make anyone safer but are costing your money and a piece of your freedom they appeal to people who want that warm fuzzy feeling of safety even if the truth is that noone can guarantue it.

Im certain that the next big thing is NOT going to be a plane, because why on earth would they target anything that is so “heavily” defended? Why not blow up a chemical plant? Why would they attack you in an area or in a way you are prepared to defend yourself against? You claim to have a military background,so you must know that this is exactly what you would NOT do if you were them.

If racial profiling means infiltrating mosques instead of the boy scouts I?m all for it. If it means harassing people because of BS measures that don?t change anything and are nothing but hot air I?m against it.

There was another thread on this general topic, but I’ll paraphrase myself here:

They need to profile, but using a variety of factors that can include race, such as national origin, movement patterns, “suspicious” behavior or appearance, race, religion, travel patterns, and more that I probably wouldn’t even consider.

And then they have to update those factors on a regular basis to counteract any observed or predicted counter-measures by the terrorists – and they should also keep the factors secret (to make them more difficult to counter).

And they need to mix in completely random searches into the mix, in order to make the actual factors harder to discern and counter, as well as to defeat any counter-measures that might otherwise be effective.

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
There was another thread on this general topic, but I’ll paraphrase myself here:

They need to profile, but using a variety of factors that can include race, such as national origin, movement patterns, “suspicious” behavior or appearance, race, religion, travel patterns, and more that I probably wouldn’t even consider.

And then they have to update those factors on a regular basis to counteract any observed or predicted counter-measures by the terrorists – and they should also keep the factors secret (to make them more difficult to counter).

And they need to mix in completely random searches into the mix, in order to make the actual factors harder to discern and counter, as well as to defeat any counter-measures that might otherwise be effective.[/quote]

And where exactly do you find someone who can implement that in real life? I know that that works in Israel, but they have how many international airports? One? And the USA has how many? Which would have to be manned in shifts? All year round? And if you managed to pull that off, what if they, gasp, decided to blow up a bus for a change?

The airport was used as an example for racial profiling not the standard. My ideal situation would be for the U.S. government to issue no more student visas to anyone coming from the middle east or of middle eastern descent. Step 2 would involve revoking all current student visas to anyone of middle eastern descent or northern african(i.e. egypt, somalia, yemen or sudan) and start the deprotation process on all of them. When, and only when we can determine on a case by case basis who does or does not have terror links we start re-issuing visas.

We do not need to willingly offer any sort of educational training to would be terrorists (i.e. flight training, nuclear engineering, or chemistry) just because they have large oil reserves and every male has an education paid for by there government. Go learn how to kill us in some other university in some other country.

Snipe,

I want to wish you a heartfelt welcome.

That was probably the best first post I have ever seen.

Do us all a favor: Keep spreading your views. More people need to hear them.

Don’t worry for one minute about the liberals when they attack you personally. They have no alternatives and no power.

You, however, have obviously done your homework.

I’m proud you are a member of the Force.

JeffR

[quote]orion wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
There was another thread on this general topic, but I’ll paraphrase myself here:

They need to profile, but using a variety of factors that can include race, such as national origin, movement patterns, “suspicious” behavior or appearance, race, religion, travel patterns, and more that I probably wouldn’t even consider.

And then they have to update those factors on a regular basis to counteract any observed or predicted counter-measures by the terrorists – and they should also keep the factors secret (to make them more difficult to counter).

And they need to mix in completely random searches into the mix, in order to make the actual factors harder to discern and counter, as well as to defeat any counter-measures that might otherwise be effective.

And where exactly do you find someone who can implement that in real life? I know that that works in Israel, but they have how many international airports? One? And the USA has how many? Which would have to be manned in shifts? All year round? And if you managed to pull that off, what if they, gasp, decided to blow up a bus for a change? [/quote]

Tell me why the trained personnel at each individual airport airport could not learn how to look for all of these things (movement patterns, ‘suspicious behavior’, travel patterns (1-way tickets are quite clear, and those travelers usually DO get checked over more throughly), race, etc…)? If you say, better training I agree. The bus-nothing that can be done about that.

[quote]snipeout wrote:
The airport was used as an example for racial profiling not the standard. My ideal situation would be for the U.S. government to issue no more student visas to anyone coming from the middle east or of middle eastern descent. Step 2 would involve revoking all current student visas to anyone of middle eastern descent or northern african(i.e. egypt, somalia, yemen or sudan) and start the deprotation process on all of them. When, and only when we can determine on a case by case basis who does or does not have terror links we start re-issuing visas.

We do not need to willingly offer any sort of educational training to would be terrorists (i.e. flight training, nuclear engineering, or chemistry) just because they have large oil reserves and every male has an education paid for by there government. Go learn how to kill us in some other university in some other country.[/quote]

I disagree. That’s extremely fascist and discriminatory. Like most of middle eastern descent or northern african descent are terrorists. Not. Please. I’m sure if we knew you better or personally, we could come up with reasons why you should distrusted and a threat to this country. And make cause for you to be deported.

Snipe,

As soon as you start directing policies towards those that are known in advance to not be US citizens, any issues I may have had no longer apply.

With what you mention above, I’d say “why take the risk”? I think some of the policies are in place to “foster good relations” or something, but in that case it hasn’t worked, has it?

[quote]snipeout wrote:
The airport was used as an example for racial profiling not the standard. My ideal situation would be for the U.S. government to issue no more student visas to anyone coming from the middle east or of middle eastern descent. Step 2 would involve revoking all current student visas to anyone of middle eastern descent or northern african(i.e. egypt, somalia, yemen or sudan) and start the deprotation process on all of them. When, and only when we can determine on a case by case basis who does or does not have terror links we start re-issuing visas.

We do not need to willingly offer any sort of educational training to would be terrorists (i.e. flight training, nuclear engineering, or chemistry) just because they have large oil reserves and every male has an education paid for by there government. Go learn how to kill us in some other university in some other country.[/quote]

The overwhelming majority that studies in the US will never be terrorists, but will return home and have a far more complex view of the US than their Iman wants them to have i.e. Big Satan. They also get confronted with ideas like free press, democracy and that diversity is not necessarily bad or dangerous. In very many ways those students get a little bit brainwashed in the US which will probably contribute to the downfall of their oppressive regimes which is also in Americas interest.

Your short term solution could in fact prolong this ideological struggle and therefore kill more people in the long run. I don?t think it?s best to go out there and do something just to be able to say or feel like you have done something even if it was, at best, useless. That?s mindless actionism.

Wouldn?t help anyway.Your muslim population is far too large, everyone can get into your country anyway and there is really no need to alienate the muslims who are willing to give the US a chance, because in the long run they are your allies.

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
orion wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
There was another thread on this general topic, but I’ll paraphrase myself here:

They need to profile, but using a variety of factors that can include race, such as national origin, movement patterns, “suspicious” behavior or appearance, race, religion, travel patterns, and more that I probably wouldn’t even consider.

And then they have to update those factors on a regular basis to counteract any observed or predicted counter-measures by the terrorists – and they should also keep the factors secret (to make them more difficult to counter).

And they need to mix in completely random searches into the mix, in order to make the actual factors harder to discern and counter, as well as to defeat any counter-measures that might otherwise be effective.

And where exactly do you find someone who can implement that in real life? I know that that works in Israel, but they have how many international airports? One? And the USA has how many? Which would have to be manned in shifts? All year round? And if you managed to pull that off, what if they, gasp, decided to blow up a bus for a change?

Tell me why the trained personnel at each individual airport airport could not learn how to look for all of these things (movement patterns, ‘suspicious behavior’, travel patterns (1-way tickets are quite clear, and those travelers usually DO get checked over more throughly), race, etc…)? If you say, better training I agree. The bus-nothing that can be done about that.

[/quote]

As I said, you could pull it off. It would cost a shitload of money, it creates a lot of people in a goverment employment who will find a way to justify their existence looooong after this threat is over and after your airports are A-ok-100%-secure-family friendly-non threatening and what not, the terrorist are just going to turn around and find an easier target.

And as I have said in an earlier post, there are lots and lots of targets that would be much worse than an airplane.

Because if I was a terrorist, I would not go after the heavily defended targets. I?d find me an easy target which affects the life of many people, preferably on a daily basis, because my aim would be to spread terror and the feeling that you could have been one of the victims.

[quote]orion wrote:
jsbrook wrote:

Tell me why the trained personnel at each individual airport airport could not learn how to look for all of these things (movement patterns, ‘suspicious behavior’, travel patterns (1-way tickets are quite clear, and those travelers usually DO get checked over more throughly), race, etc…)? If you say, better training I agree. The bus-nothing that can be done about that.

As I said, you could pull it off. It would cost a shitload of money, it creates a lot of people in a goverment employment who will find a way to justify their existence looooong after this threat is over and after your airports are A-ok-100%-secure-family friendly-non threatening and what not, the terrorist are just going to turn around and find an easier target.

And as I have said in an earlier post, there are lots and lots of targets that would be much worse than an airplane.

Because if I was a terrorist, I would not go after the heavily defended targets. I?d find me an easy target which affects the life of many people, preferably on a daily basis, because my aim would be to spread terror and the feeling that you could have been one of the victims. [/quote]

Good. People could use the jobs. Train them, get them in the airport, and let er rip. In terms of the threat of terrorism, when do you think that will be over? You’re right-there are plenty of easy targets. But we can’t control everything. So, we might as well try to control aviation and prevent the hijacking of planes, explosions at airports, and steering those planes to high-profile targets.

It’s very difficult to imagine an even more serious attack on our shores than 9-11 that would not end up with very extreme counter measures, including racial profiling.

Naturally, I pray that that day will never come. However, if it does you can all rest assured that the government will do everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in it’s power to prevent even more terrorism.

NOTE This is going to be a rant also Here is the problem, you only read what you want to read from these posts. I understand not all people of middle eastern descent or northern african descent are bad people. The point you’re missing is that they are not ENTITLED to be here, student visas are a PRIVILEGE, not a right. As I can atest to first hand from having been in the military and working in a prison and a jail, sometimes what a very small minority of the specific population does can affect the masses.

I will use jail for instance, if I have a dorm of 40 people and I have 5 unidentifiable inmates(or convicts)causing problems - i.e. pushing up on others taking food trays and beating the crap out of one or two inmates in a cell because they wouldn’t give up a ramen noodle soup - I am left no option but to lock the entire dorm down cell by cell until my investigation reveals the source of the problem. I just punished 90% of the people for the 10% causing problems.

Now place this on a larger scale, until these middle eastern and northern african governments can better police their own countries and better collect intel as to who has terror links and who does not, you simply do not have the “privilege” of coming to the United States to study. We as a country need to put more pressure on these regimes so they can internally squeeze out these EXTREMISTS. If they don’t, they do not receive one cent of economic aid. This is where politics and left and right wing comes into play. We are dependent upon foreign oil for many reasons.

One reason, a big reason is ANWR, a wildlife reserve in Alaska rich in oil reserves. Why you ask do we not simply drill the 2000 acres out of the 19 million acres required to extract the oil here? Because left wing liberal interests - animal rights activists - are afraid it may distract the caribous mating ritual. Now you’re asking yourself, where is he going with this and why do I care? Well because we won’t drill ANWR we are highly dependent on Saudi and UAE oil. If we depend on their oil how can we sanction them? We can’t, unless you dont mind paying 5$'s for a gallon of gas.

Let me throw a liberal answer out there, alternative fuel sources. No one with enough money to create a whole new fuel industry, next liberal answer, we’ll raise your taxes and the government will pay for it. Let’s get real deep into the whole middle eastern problem, hell I would say it manifested right back in the Carter administration, another appeasement liberal. In 1979 el presidente Carter allowed the then moderate ruling shah of iran to be deposed by an angry mob of islamic extremists, not through the shahs’ lack of appealing to the Carter administration for guidance as to how to handle the uprising. Carter told the shah to do nothing or face reprecussions from the U.S. if he crushes the uprising.

Failure to quell the mob led to the shahs’ demise and the iranian embassy being taken hostage just a few short months later. As you can see appeasement and non-offensive tactics do not work against these extremists. what you have is a snowball effect, by America not being able to protect itself in anyway which may violate the poor terrorists civil rights we open ourselves up to more attacks. All you huggy kissy liberals need to join the army or marine corps, get out see the world, see how the rest of the world wants us dead because of our capitalist society, our freedom of choice, you may be less likely to cry how racial profiling is a bad thing.

Just because you were coddled through college by some liberal 1969 weed smoking liberal professor doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who don’t care how much you apologize for being more successful or how much aid you give them, they will cut your head off and chant “allah ahkbar” because you are the infidel. So, yes you may have to punish the masses of middle eastern countries to protect this country. You have to ask yourself one question, are you more concerned with what they think or would you rather live to see another day…

[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
There was another thread on this general topic, but I’ll paraphrase myself here:

They need to profile, but using a variety of factors that can include race, such as national origin, movement patterns, “suspicious” behavior or appearance, race, religion, travel patterns, and more that I probably wouldn’t even consider.

And then they have to update those factors on a regular basis to counteract any observed or predicted counter-measures by the terrorists – and they should also keep the factors secret (to make them more difficult to counter).

And they need to mix in completely random searches into the mix, in order to make the actual factors harder to discern and counter, as well as to defeat any counter-measures that might otherwise be effective.

orion wrote:
And where exactly do you find someone who can implement that in real life? I know that that works in Israel, but they have how many international airports? One? And the USA has how many? Which would have to be manned in shifts? All year round? And if you managed to pull that off, what if they, gasp, decided to blow up a bus for a change? [/quote]

They’d obviously need to utilize a computer program, which would require a good data sources – probably passport numbers and/or drivers’ licenses, and the travel patterns from airline’s customer files – to pre-select people for screening, both random and according to criteria. That could easily be rolled out in many locations once such a program was created.

As for security, I think it’s pretty well agreed that we need to hire more, and they need to be competent. I would suggest ex-military as the hiring pool for starters.

Subways would need something different, though trained dogs in subway stations along with more cops would be a good start.

Buses are more problematic by nature, but also less prone to large-scale casualties in a single instance.

Not that I have all the answers - not even close - but they can definitely implement something far superior to what we have now.

The problem, of course, is that inherent to all defenders – you need to defend all weaknesses at once, whereas an attacker needs to find only one to exploit.

[quote]ZEB wrote:
It’s very difficult to imagine an even more serious attack on our shores than 9-11 that would not end up with very extreme counter measures, including racial profiling.

Naturally, I pray that that day will never come. However, if it does you can all rest assured that the government will do everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in it’s power to prevent even more terrorism.[/quote]

Like firing arab-speaking translators because they?re , gasp, gay?

Mwuaha… mwuahahahha…

That very same government?

Mwuahahahah…

That was very cheap and I apologize. Couldn?t help it though…

I think you are right, the next big attack would result in the loss of even more of your freedoms. Which won?t prevent the attack after that which will result in even less freedom for you.

[quote]snipeout wrote:
NOTE This is going to be a rant also Here is the problem, you only read what you want to read from these posts. I understand not all people of middle eastern descent or northern african descent are bad people. The point you’re missing is that they are not ENTITLED to be here, student visas are a PRIVILEGE, not a right. As I can atest to first hand from having been in the military and working in a prison and a jail, sometimes what a very small minority of the specific population does can affect the masses.

I will use jail for instance, if I have a dorm of 40 people and I have 5 unidentifiable inmates(or convicts)causing problems - i.e. pushing up on others taking food trays and beating the crap out of one or two inmates in a cell because they wouldn’t give up a ramen noodle soup - I am left no option but to lock the entire dorm down cell by cell until my investigation reveals the source of the problem. I just punished 90% of the people for the 10% causing problems.

Now place this on a larger scale, until these middle eastern and northern african governments can better police their own countries and better collect intel as to who has terror links and who does not, you simply do not have the “privilege” of coming to the United States to study. We as a country need to put more pressure on these regimes so they can internally squeeze out these EXTREMISTS. If they don’t, they do not receive one cent of economic aid. This is where politics and left and right wing comes into play. We are dependent upon foreign oil for many reasons.

One reason, a big reason is ANWR, a wildlife reserve in Alaska rich in oil reserves. Why you ask do we not simply drill the 2000 acres out of the 19 million acres required to extract the oil here? Because left wing liberal interests - animal rights activists - are afraid it may distract the caribous mating ritual. Now you’re asking yourself, where is he going with this and why do I care? Well because we won’t drill ANWR we are highly dependent on Saudi and UAE oil. If we depend on their oil how can we sanction them? We can’t, unless you dont mind paying 5$'s for a gallon of gas.

Let me throw a liberal answer out there, alternative fuel sources. No one with enough money to create a whole new fuel industry, next liberal answer, we’ll raise your taxes and the government will pay for it. Let’s get real deep into the whole middle eastern problem, hell I would say it manifested right back in the Carter administration, another appeasement liberal. In 1979 el presidente Carter allowed the then moderate ruling shah of iran to be deposed by an angry mob of islamic extremists, not through the shahs’ lack of appealing to the Carter administration for guidance as to how to handle the uprising. Carter told the shah to do nothing or face reprecussions from the U.S. if he crushes the uprising.

Failure to quell the mob led to the shahs’ demise and the iranian embassy being taken hostage just a few short months later. As you can see appeasement and non-offensive tactics do not work against these extremists. what you have is a snowball effect, by America not being able to protect itself in anyway which may violate the poor terrorists civil rights we open ourselves up to more attacks. All you huggy kissy liberals need to join the army or marine corps, get out see the world, see how the rest of the world wants us dead because of our capitalist society, our freedom of choice, you may be less likely to cry how racial profiling is a bad thing.

Just because you were coddled through college by some liberal 1969 weed smoking liberal professor doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who don’t care how much you apologize for being more successful or how much aid you give them, they will cut your head off and chant “allah ahkbar” because you are the infidel. So, yes you may have to punish the masses of middle eastern countries to protect this country. You have to ask yourself one question, are you more concerned with what they think or would you rather live to see another day… [/quote]

So, it’s a privilege and not a right. Agreed. It doesn’t mean we should structure and society and change our policy on student visas. You analogy is not very relevant. You’re talking about 5 people out of 40, the source of whom could be revealed by an invesitigation? That’s a lot different than denying student visas to an entire class of people because .25% are terrorist none of whom may be the students in question. It wouldn’t do anything anyhow. There are tons of Muslims living in this country as legal residents and citizens. Any # of them could get involved in terrorist activity. So, what should be done? Deportation? Internment camps? You want to punish millions for the theoretical future actions of a very few.

Your attempts to make this posts about liberal vs. conservatism highly discredit you. I’m not a liberal. I vote on issues, am extremely dissatisfied with both current parties, and often find the Republican’s stance on certain things best. I support drilling in Alaska. I think it’s worth it to become less dependent on foreign oil, and the sacrifice to the Alaskan wilderness is worth it. I do not, however, support the plethora of other policies that erode the environmental protections. And drilling for oil in Alaska, itself, is not enough. Nor is it necessarily the best answer. The amount and quality of Alaskan oil is highly questionable. Reasearch and development into alternative energery sources IS a good idea. Bush made a speech on it. Reagan was talking about it back in the 80s. People should have listened more. There have been significant strides already with practically no public funding whatsoever.

Show me any proof whatsoever that terrorists’ ‘civil rights’ are being protected. Where are these terrorists? In your post, they don’t exist. And the end of your post about liberal crap is drivel and totally irrelevent to the topic at hand.

Snipeout,

and if a small minority can influence the masses why would you NOT want the future elite of the arab world to study in the US?

Seems to be a perfect way to corrupt them a little bit with porn, fast food and , ah yes, a sense of freedom.

And if the thing with the weed smoking liberal collegeprofessor was aimed at me, you are applying american stereotypes to someone 6000 miles away. That does not work very well for your government, so why would you want to start with it?

[quote]orion wrote:
ZEB wrote:
It’s very difficult to imagine an even more serious attack on our shores than 9-11 that would not end up with very extreme counter measures, including racial profiling.

Naturally, I pray that that day will never come. However, if it does you can all rest assured that the government will do everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in it’s power to prevent even more terrorism.

Like firing arab-speaking translators because they?re , gasp, gay?

Mwuaha… mwuahahahha…

That very same government?

Mwuahahahah…

That was very cheap and I apologize. Couldn?t help it though…
[/quote]

Actually, not very funny.

Keep in mind I am the person who is against discrimination. And I have proven by employing and renting to everyone regardless of their sexual preference. How many Gay’s do you currently employ, or rent to?

You can be against a certain behavior yet refuse to discriminate against people who practice that behavior. I call it “fair play.”

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Show me any proof whatsoever that terrorists’ ‘civil rights’ are being protected. Where are these terrorists? In your post, they don’t exist. And the end of your post about liberal crap is drivel and totally irrelevent to the topic at hand.
[/quote]

Hello, ever hear of the ACLU?