POLITICS: NY State Legislator Calls For NYPD To Use Profiling In War Against Terror

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, says he is planning on introducing legislation that will allow police to use racial profiling to target Middle Easterners when searching bags. In a printed statement issued Sunday, Hikind stated that "there is a terrorist profile for a potential suicide bomber, and it's not the 75-year-old grandmother, with sloping shoulders, who has an oversized tote bag firmly tucked under her arm. Randomly checking her bag may be politically correct, but it doesn't cut it when we're trying to protect millions of mass transit riders."



What Hikind says makes a lot of sense when you come right down to it. Why spend millions of dollars to search the bags of Caucasians or little old ladies when you know that the majority of those attacking countries around the world are Middle easterners between the age of 18 and 30? And no, I am not saying they should not be searched, all I am saying is their searches should be minimal.

Perhaps he is right and it is time to put political correctness aside until we get terrorism under control. Police do not issue an alert for a white male when they know that they are looking for a Black or Hispanic individual, so why should this be any different? We also have to keep in mind Britan is not looking for Caucasians, they are looking for Middle Eastern men, again why should we be any different?

A current online poll shows that the majority of those voting support profiling. (see supporting link)

Should the NYPD use racial profiling when searching bags in the subways?
YES 77.93% NO 22.07% 1722 votes counted


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[edit on 8/1/2005 by shots]

Apparently, those people who 'look a certain way' can be anything from Brazilian to Middle Eastern. I guess as long as they're not white, they're 'looking a certain way.'

Racial profiling: # that.

Terrorists come in all different colors. Are we forgetting um, Unabomber, McVeigh, John Walker Lindh, etc., etc.?

It's not effective, and it's racist.

Profiling doesn't mean "stop every brown person" as the left would have us believe, it means to use good intelligence on a range of sex, age, behavior, and yes race and religion.

Stopping every 5th person like they're doing now on the NYC subway is just a waste of police time and makes us less safe IMHO.

Race and religion huh?
I never realized people walked around with signs on their chests saying "Hi, Im a Muslim from Pakistan, screen me!".

Profiling is lazy feel good policy, the fact that its frowned upon isnt because its "poltically incorrect" (another buzzword of the right with no meaning) but because it doesnt work.





Quick spot the Muslim terrorist using the profile (remember look for guys who look "Arab" with the word "Muslim" written on their foreheads)!

[edit on 2-8-2005 by boogyman]

A cop will use instinct. He will also use the random system because its politically correct.....In NYC there are sooo many walks of life! You bet your petunias a cop is gonna stop every middle eastern looking male...spotted with the occasional white female. C'mon guys what else can you do? I happen to look middle eastern, My husband is of german descent, american, with marine tatoos...they stop me in the airport...then they stop him, 'cause they stop me....we dont mind. The HAVE to stop him because he is with me...Its pretty funny...but no fail I am always retained and then he has to wait with me, then they mess with him too. Marine, NY fireman, really white waiting for his dark wife...while I take off my shoes lift up my pant legs they go thru my bag...I just wanna go to Disney World man!!

Lose lose situation.

I understand the pro-profiling argument. Why search 85 year old white women for bombs when not one of them has committed such an act?

I hear ya.

BUT

By that same argument, why search all Middle Eastern looking people when 99.999999999% of them have not / will not commit such an act.

People are looking for a perfect solution in which the NYPD will only search the bags of the guilty. Well, sorry to disappoint, but on the real planet earth we don't have mindreading machines telling us who is planning on causing trouble and who isn't.

You're going to stop innocent people and search them. It's a given. You can't only stop perps unless you're a prophet.

Oh and here's a good tip for all of you and for the good Assemblyman:

The searches themselves are meaningless. The fact that they are being performed, and are seen being performed is what matters.

Think about it. Would you try to sneak the toy out of the store when the storekeeper is searching bags? No you're going to go somewhere that they don't search bags. Profiling is irrelevant because no one is waltzing onto the subway with a cache of grenades. You just want to instill a fear in the terrorists that they can no longer get in undetected.

[edit on 8-2-2005 by Djarums]

The problem is that if they do start with racial profiling, terrorists will send people who wont be searched. If they only search middle eastern guys between 18-30, then theyll send a white guy whos 58 years old. If these people are smart enough to get into the country, make bombs and devise a plan, you think they are going to have trouble finding someone who wont get searched? I think the whole John Walker thing was proof that it isnt just middle eastern people who are involved with this.

Racial profiling is not a solution to this problem. I dont know what is, though i just can almost garuntee you this will not help.

I have nothing against this kind of racial profiling, it makes sense and what many people don't realize is that racial profiling is already legal, to a degree. This is just a logical extension.

However, as others have already mentioned, the benefits of racial profiling here are kind of illusionary. Not all terrorists are going to look middle eastern.

Finally, living in NYC and taking the subway every day, I can tell you that while there is an increased cop presence lately, it would still be ridiculously easy for someone to slip a bomb through. There just aren't that many cops in America for this kind of "solution" to work. We need to look at the bigger picture for the real change to be made.

-koji K.

Don't you get it? The legislator 'calls for NYPD to use profiling' for legal reasons. Do you really believe anything will be different?

Security will still check those who 'fit' a certain profile, or who seem to be acting 'abnormal'. The only difference is they don't have to also check the 'little old ladies' and babies.

For instance, without the approval for profiling they would check every fifth person and those who fit 'suspicious' persons. Now they will only have to check the 'suspicious' people.

Make sense? Does to me.

Originally posted by SourGrapes
Don't you get it? The legislator 'calls for NYPD to use profiling' for legal reasons. Do you really believe anything will be different?

Security will still check those who 'fit' a certain profile, or who seem to be acting 'abnormal'. The only difference is they don't have to also check the 'little old ladies' and babies.

For instance, without the approval for profiling they would check every fifth person and those who fit 'suspicious' persons. Now they will only have to check the 'suspicious' people.

Make sense? Does to me.

All good or excellent points SourGrapes, however I disagree on one point.

Eliminating the searches of little old ladies means they will search more middle eastern men as they should be doing.

So here we have people that have no a clue of the different of a latino to a middle easterner using their perhaps bias logic depending of the racial background of the searcher to target anybody that doesn't fit in their stereotype of what an American should look like.

Next they will target homes for random "racial profiling" searches in a neighborhood next to you.

Taking in consideration that here in the south anybody that look certain way is tag Mexican, I guess the middle easterner will find safe haven in my neck of the woods.

Or . . . they will be persecuted because many here in the south can not tell who from who.

They only understand two races "black or white" anything in between is "Mexican"

Racial profiling is logical, there is no escaping that. But will it solve anything? I would have to say no it will not.

As mentioned before, racial profiling is a deterent. I can think of much more effective and efficient deterents to would-be terrorists trying to sneak explosives onto public transport.

T-ray scanners and explosive "sniffing" machines at all entries would be an expensive, but a far better solution. That way you can scan all passengers and the John Walker Lindh's and David Hick's of this world would not get a free ride due to racial profiling.

What happens with all deterents? The bad guys are detered and either find other targets or circumvent the deterent.

Should Americans continue to use up a vast swathe of their boys in blue for such an exercise? One who's benefits and longevity as a deterent are minimal?

Spend some cash on high tech entry sensors, buy them from Haliburton for all I care.

Which brings me to my other objection to the implementation of racial profiling, the muslim backlash. How many moderate muslims will be outraged at being treat this way in their own country? Being targeted for suspicion purely because of their race. Now Ive said earlier that racial profiling is logical but it is still going to piss off quite a lot of America's muslims and other minorities. This should not be ignored and discarded as merely "tough luck". It has the potential to radicalize American muslims much like we saw with our own homegrown muslim suicide bombers. This should not be overlooked.

All in all, yes racial profiling is logical but I feel it is inappropriate, a waste of manpower, counter productive and a dumb idea.

Originally posted by subz
Racial profiling is logical, there is no escaping that. But will it solve anything? I would have to say no it will not.

Yes to a point it will. It is apprent the UK/Britan used it recently and they got their men didn't they? Yup sure did.

Which brings me to my other objection to the implementation of racial profiling, the muslim backlash. How many moderate muslims will be outraged at being treat this way in their own country? Being targeted for suspicion purely because of their race. Now Ive said earlier that racial profiling is logical but it is still going to piss off quite a lot of America's muslims and other minorities. This should not be ignored and discarded as merely "tough luck". It has the potential to radicalize American muslims much like we saw with our own homegrown muslim suicide bombers. This should not be overlooked.

I am willing to bet that in some cases even moderate muslims will agree with profiling. Keep in mind they ride public transit also and they do not want to be killed.

All in all, yes racial profiling is logical but I feel it is inappropriate, a waste of manpower, counter productive and a dumb idea.

Do not kid yourself call it profiling or racial profiling it is something the free world will now have to live with. The fact it profiling does work, you can take that to the bank.

Now before you rant and rave, I am not saying it is 100% effective but it is perhaps one of the best tools we have at this time. Ten years down the road that may not be since they now appear to be moving into Africa looking for more people to recruit. Heaven help us if they succeed at that.

Whether we tell the police to do racial profiling or not they are going to do it anyway, even if it is illegal. The simple fact is, that kind of thinking is built into us. The police read reports every day of who did what to whom and they file & sort this stuff inside their own minds just as anyone would do. If they see that the majority of, say muggings, are being committed by, for example, black males, then they are going to view black males with more suspicion than anyone else when it comes to that kind of crime. If they see that most crimes, of all descriptions, are being committed by black males then they are going to be suspicious of them--period. Getting back to terrorism, the same kind of thinking applies here, the problem here though is the police can't tell who is and who isn't someone they ought to be suspicious of because they just haven't had enough experience yet to make the fine distinctions between the various non white, non black, non asiatic peoples. Therefore, they shouldn't attempt to use these types of mental filters until they have been trained or have had more experience. But as we already see, they are doing it anyway and including just enough of everyone else to get away with it.

Humans are judgemental animals whether we really want to admit it or not and they are going to make judgements about people based upon a lot of things, especially whether or not the person they are judging fits into their mental picture of "normal" for whatever the situation at hand is. We try to discourage this type of thinking by rightly calling it biggoted, or biased, or prejudiced, or whatever, but people still do it and they ain't gonna stop just cause we don't like it.

[edit on 3-8-2005 by Astronomer68]

Originally posted by shots
Yes to a point it will. It is apprent the UK/Britan used it recently and they got their men didn't they? Yup sure did.

I thought we were talking about racial profiling of transit passengers.

Brooklyn Democrat Dov Hikind said he plans to introduce legislation allowing police to use racial profiling to target Middle Eastern-looking passengers when they search bags.

Completely different kettle of fish than using racial profiling for criminal investigations. I really have no objection to it being used by police in investigations.

Originally posted by shots
I am willing to bet that in some cases even moderate muslims will agree with profiling. Keep in mind they ride public transit also and they do not want to be killed.

You keep telling yourself that.

Originally posted by shots
Now before you rant and rave, I am not saying it is 100% effective but it is perhaps one of the best tools we have at this time.

Originally posted by shots
Ten years down the road that may not be since they now appear to be moving into Africa looking for more people to recruit. Heaven help us if they succeed at that.

Terrorists are using all sorts of races, including caucasians. Not to mention the fact that some middle easterners can look caucasian any way. Like you say its a tool, not a crutch. It should be used appropriately and sensitively. There is a balance to strike and I think our police forces are more than capable of using racial profiling without alienating our miniorities.

[edit on 3/8/05 by subz]

Originally posted by boogyman
Profiling is lazy feel good policy

I suspect that we will see a lot more lazy policies coming to fruition in the future. People don't seem to want to sit down and really expend some brain power in solving the current problems, they just want the 'easy', quick option.

``
the Profiling thing, yes its probably biased, unfair, politicallyIncorrect,
and flies in the face of altruistic social interaction.
but its a start...a beginning in creating a new network of 'identifiers',

things that make the hair on your neck stand up, is not considered a lawful
reason to impede or intrude into another persons' freedom of movement

'Profiling' , will evolve and expand and develop into both broader and
more detailed, focused 'profiling'....check out this (rather long) article I received from my ISP as a hyperlink: www.businessweek.com...

but, like someone previously said...
we cannot monitor what's in a evildoers' heart or mind..

Originally posted by subz
I thought we were talking about racial profiling of transit passengers.

Not exactly the title states "NY State Legislator Calls For NYPD To Use Profiling In War Against Terror » " so all profiling in general is OK to discuss.