The Case for what some call Racial Profiling

I say this as a black man who can't stand political correctness. The TSA situation could be handled in an efficient way if we used a profiling system.

I don't call this racial profiling. I say it's profiling based on the demographics of the crime.

For instance, if I'm looking for a drug dealer in Harlem, the first thing I'm looking for is a young black male and not a 60 year old white lady. This isn't profiling based on race but based on the demographics of the crime that's being committed.

When looking for possible terrorist who might try to blow up a plane, we need to first look at young to middle aged Arab men and then we can widen are net to find those who fit the demographics of the crime. These are those people who are most likely to be influenced by radical Islam.

A lot of this nonsense is political correctness because liberal tell us we can't offend anyone or hurt anyones feelings when we're trying to protect our lives.

When F.B.I. Profilers look for Serial Killers the first thing they look for is someone that looks like Jeffrey Dahmer not Al Sharpton. Are F.B.I. Profilers racist against white people? No, they are just looking for people who fit the demographics of the crime.

I grew up in a mostly black neighborhood. When a crime was committed Police looked for a young black male before they looked for a young white male from Great Britain. This isn't racial profiling it's just being smart.

Liberals tell us we have to treat everyone the same and they scream about profiling but profiling based on the demographics of the crime is just smart and efficient.

How do you profile someone who wants to blow up a plane (as an example)? It is absolutely impossible nowdays.

I took a Homeland Security class - yes I expect lots of eye rolls and gasps.....I did a research paper on Al-Qaeda. From my paper.....

Al-Qaeda's newest tactic is using westerners and American born people. Al-Qaeda is aware that Arabs are being singled out and know that they will have to recruit non-Arabs, women and children. "They are particularly interested in people with U.S. or other Western passports who defy the typical Al-Qaeda profile of the ‘young Arab male.’ In emphasizing technical capability, they can seek and recruit persons who already have particular technical knowledge in areas such as chemistry and engineering or operational skills such as bomb making or weapons use, rather than having to invest in developing all of these in basic recruits." (Borum, R., & Gelles, M., 2005)

Further, because Al-Qaeda has changed this tactic of recruiting it is becoming harder for intelligence to identify these operatives. They have legitimate passports and no criminal records. They do not stand out and match the Al-Qaeda stereotype anymore. (Scott, D. 2005.)

Bottom line. Profiling is no longer the best means of "fighting terrorism".

Wanted to add....I'm the most anti-political correct person you can find. I actually understand profiling and believe it is necessary in many situations. But to understand terrorism and the people behind it...you have to study it and realize that they adapt to us. If we develop a tactic of finding them and fighting them....they change their methods. Terrorism and the people behind it are fluid and are continually changing how they operate.

reply to post by Matrix Rising


Absolutely brilliant post. Beyond my ability to describe how eloquently you have conveyed such an important, critical and crucial message.

I 100% agree and have been trying to get this across to people using a metaphor...e

' if you have a factory full of fruit, and the bananas are 'infected'... are you going to search the oranges and apples as to not offend the yellow nanners? '

It has nothing to do with what color... or what god they follow... or what the land looks like they came from... absolutely nothing.

This is a political game of division.

Welcome to Babel?

*Just thought of something, ... What is America (as if a role model figure) teaching the 'children' to do if 'attacked' ?

Attack them back with 100X the force, take all of their stuff, beat up their friends/or kill, and get the rest of your friends to join in on the action (UK, etc)

Hmm... and here I was taught in school that 'and eye for an eye' never works... everyone 'ends up blind' ... and 'violence solves nothing' and so on... HMM...

hmm...

Originally posted by Matrix Rising
I say this as a black man who can't stand political correctness. The TSA situation could be handled in an efficient way if we used a profiling system.

I don't call this racial profiling. I say it's profiling based on the demographics of the crime.

For instance, if I'm looking for a drug dealer in Harlem, the first thing I'm looking for is a young black male and not a 60 year old white lady. This isn't profiling based on race but based on the demographics of the crime that's being committed.

When looking for possible terrorist who might try to blow up a plane, we need to first look at young to middle aged Arab men and then we can widen are net to find those who fit the demographics of the crime. These are those people who are most likely to be influenced by radical Islam.

A lot of this nonsense is political correctness because liberal tell us we can't offend anyone or hurt anyones feelings when we're trying to protect our lives.

When F.B.I. Profilers look for Serial Killers the first thing they look for is someone that looks like Jeffrey Dahmer not Al Sharpton. Are F.B.I. Profilers racist against white people? No, they are just looking for people who fit the demographics of the crime.

I grew up in a mostly black neighborhood. When a crime was committed Police looked for a young black male before they looked for a young white male from Great Britain. This isn't racial profiling it's just being smart.

Liberals tell us we have to treat everyone the same and they scream about profiling but profiling based on the demographics of the crime is just smart and efficient.

Starred and flagged.

That is certainly the best explanation of effective profiling I've seen to date.

How many white or black or chinese 60 year old women are really likely terrorist threats? Same thing with how many 20 year old hotties, white, black or chinese?

My ladylove and I have a beautiful little Palistinian girl who just got married in the states, but thinks of us as her god parents - and I'm part Jew. I would freak out if some SOB wanted to body-check her.

TSA needs to be reigned in, and hard.

Again, starred and flagged Sir!

reply to post by Matrix Rising


I'm glad you brought this up, it's kinda of a pet peeve of mine. I'm a cop in a small segregated town in the south with influences from larger surrounding towns. The racial profiling law means that if I'm out looking for drug activity and I see a Lincoln on 22 inch rims, painted with a Panthers football team logo, pounding out Fifty Cent at 90 decibels parked on a known drug corner occupied by two young black males in hoodies; unless I see drugs exchange hands I cannot investigate them at all.The drug dealers know the laws better than I do and know that I cannot touch them as long as I don't have probable cause. So when they drive off, they do the speed limit, stop at the stop signs, use their turn signals, etc. It's a joke.
When an agent at the airport sees a muslim in full garb and obviously from a mid-eastern country, then he should be singled out.
On the flip side, this cannot be abused. The totallity of the circumstances has to be considered. Using the example given above; if you take away the "known drug area" and "the donk car" then maybe there is not enough to pursue those individuals.
The racial profiling law has crippled law enforcement's ability to do their jobs.
Seeashrink

reply to post by Matrix Rising


Ready for the flaw in your proposal?

Meet the Underwear Bomber.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/70a720765fe8.jpg[/atsimg]

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

So, your racially profiling must now include all young black males.

Course, other terrorists who might fly planes into buildings also include middle aged white males.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2bd8593a47bb.jpg[/atsimg]

Meet Andrew Joseph Stack III

and BTW, white granny in Harlem in the middle of the night? Yea, that's suspicious. Why? Because white granny in Harlem in the middle of the night is probably selling her medication for rent money. So, don't rule out white granny in Harlem in the middle of the night.

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
Wanted to add....I'm the most anti-political correct person you can find. I actually understand profiling and believe it is necessary in many situations. But to understand terrorism and the people behind it...you have to study it and realize that they adapt to us. If we develop a tactic of finding them and fighting them....they change their methods. Terrorism and the people behind it are fluid and are continually changing how they operate.

edit on December 27th 2010 by greeneyedleo because: (no reason given)

I agree with much of what you said.

However, seems we have to do something differently, because the methods currently employed, especially at airports, do not make me feel safe, but do make me not want to fly.
Like the OP said, they need to make the person they are looking for fit the crime better.

reply to post by Matrix Rising


Racial profiling is inevitable, and I find little objection to it. If there is a criminal out there and he is black or african american, or latino, or white, it should be understandable that his or her racial charactaristic will come into play. The real problem that people like you and many others appear to ignore or play down is when innocent individuals are harassed or stereotyped as suspicious merely because they are of a certain racial colour. At the end of the day we cannot stop every police officer or individual from doing this, but by the least we can acknowledge it is a problem. Not every black man driving a Lexus need be suspect, not every ragged latino or hispanic is necessarly suspect of being here illegally. Racial profiling is necessary when it involves a reasonable suspect based on evidence, it is pure discrimmination when "race" is used to categorize an entire peoples, and it is a problem in the country as with many others.

reply to post by greeneyedleo
how true if people only knew how fluid they really are then they, the people would understand the TSA DHS reasoning, on the same toking, every one should get the same treatment. after doing my own research in to this matter there is no easy answer. I can see how they the TSA DHS can think we are all potential terrorist, yes even littel old lady's, for they just do not know, does this mean they should be in wal world or a bus station? does buying a box cutter by a 60 year old or a 9 year old mean that they could be up too something other than just wanting to open a box, come to think of it what items would send up a RED Flag to you?

Of course the situation is fluid and you have to accommodate for change but the fact remains young to middle aged Arab men are the primary targets to profile when it comes to terrorism. Their still blowing up their own people when they can.

When the NSA listens and looks for Terrorist communication their looking for cell phones and e-mails coming out of the Middle East. This is just smart. They look at other places but their primary target is the Middle East based on the Demographics of the crime Terrorism carried out by those influence by radical Islam.

There not looking and listing in throughout Saskatchewan in order to be fair to everybody. They target the Demographics of the Crime.

Your theory falls flat on its face when you consider the 'terrorists' that WUK provided above.

The 'underwear bomber' was from Africa and could've passed for an African-American in any city in the country.

Joe Stack was an old white guy who flew a plane into a government building.

Timothy McVeigh bombed a government building. Not a muslim or of middle-eastern descent.

Jimmy and Kathy Simmons were firebombers in Florida. Their act was a 'gift to Jesus'.

Eric Rudolph was a middle-aged white man who planted numerous bombs.

Terrorism in Ireland is just one example of non-muslim terrorism. Should we target Irish catholics who live near protestants?

How exactly do you propose we fight those terrorists?

reply to post by links234


You're not making any sense. Timothy McVeigh wasn't influenced by radical Islam. You do know that hijackers who were influenced by radical islam flew planes into building on 9/11? You have heard of what happened to the Embassies in Africa or the first WTC Bombing? You do know they are still killing their own people in places like Afghanistan?

When you're facing terrorist that are influenced by radical Islam of course you look and listen in on communications from the Middle East and your primary target is young to middle aged Arab man that can be influenced by radical Islam. This is just common sense.

When you look for the Timothy McVeigh's or Militia types, you're primary target isn't black guys who hang out in Harlem and you're not going to an all black church to look for McVeigh and others like him.

You profile based on the Demographics of the crime. This is just basic common sense.

reply to post by Matrix Rising


So, you are saying that they should ONLY look for people of middle eastern decent. Letting our underwear bomber get through (being African and not middle eastern in decent), and well in the case of the IRS plane crasher, I guess white males shouldn't be looked at either because YOUR demographics for white males makes them less of a threat.

The point is, you never know who is going to be the next terrorist. Hell, reading some of the posts on this site you might come to the conclusion that the next terrorist might be a radical right wing TEA Partier. (hell, they LOVE calling themselves terrorists)

Because you never know who is going to be the next person, you have to look at everyone. Sure, if dude in traditional Arab garb is screaming "Allah Akbar" in the middle of the concourse, you might want to check that out. But you can't eliminate 98% of everyone else for screening because YOU feel that Arabs are the major threat, I blew a hole in that theory already.

Racial Profiling should be practiced and used with no question. Foreign countries have done so for years, and very few " hi jacks" occurred under that rule. Very few, in comparison to the US, who had an open door policy for hi jackings.

My criticism of the TSA practices stem from the entire concept of trying to create an impenetrable barrier.

We started with metal detectors - explosives are not going to trip a metal detector, and it requires a sufficient amount of metal to trigger a sensor. These machines are common and can be tested by groups with some capital resources to acquire one (they can probably salvage them from various scrap yards, to be honest). In a sense - the defenses of the "impenetrable barrier" can be probed without actually raising suspicion (it would eventually look suspicious if you had evidence that airport security was being probed in a systematic manner to see what kinds of things could be slipped through).

So, we eventually go to these new scanners. As they become more common-place, their availability will increase as well, and funded terrorist groups will be able to probe the defenses with relative impunity. Pat-downs are about as random as people - but look at things like prosthetics. We had some people getting pretty upset that people with prosthetic limbs were being treated with a higher degree of suspicion. A woman with implants could be packing around some kind of explosive - who knows until we check?

And that's the problem with trying to create an impenetrable barrier. The resources necessary to make it impenetrable grow exponentially to the effort groups are willing to put into slipping through the barrier. Most of our resources involve keeping people from getting on the plane, as opposed to doing something about those who get on the planes and cause trouble.

Once I'm on a plane - I'm pretty well home-free, particularly if I've got a team I'm working with who are aboard the plane, as well.

At some point, we should stop trying to keep them from getting on the plane. Sure - use chemical sniffers and metal detectors to keep them from packing assault weapons or something crazy like that - but after that, put resources into increasing the number of air marshals on flights - use intelligence to put higher numbers of air marshals on flights indicated to be more likely to see problems. Perhaps train stewardesses in self-defense and martial arts - authorize them to carry stun weapons, and rather than dress them in high-heels and restrictive clothing fit for funerals - dress them in functional clothing. I have never cared that my stewardess looked like she was on a business trip or some kind of French-Maid.

I know for a fact that every person in the military and reserve goes through a some form of terrorism prevention training. Offering up a program where reservists and guard personnel could sit in on various flights (like Air Marshals) and carry concealed stun weapons as security and for reasonable compensation would be one possible way of saving on the cost of running huge numbers of full-time Air Marshals. We've already been trained in a number of things and could be brought in for a fraction of the cost with similar (if not identical/better) performance to full-time Air Marshals.

It's kind of like how the military runs their defenses. You don't throw everything you have into a "Maginot Line" - history has shown this to be a pretty poor tactic. Instead, you set up a set of defensive tiers and have a Quick Reaction Force to deal with anything that gets into areas it is not supposed to be. Generally, there is a 'soft' barrier indicated by signs. You, then, have a 'hard' barrier indicated by fencing that may or may not be energized - alert levels will determine whether or not these barriers are protected by assets like MG nests, mines, etc. You also have a soft reactionary barrier of roving patrols. You then have a centralized "QRF" that deploys in the event the bad guys get on the base.

To parallel, you start with 'soft' barriers in airport security. This would be in the form of signs that say "no weapons, please" - that sort of thing. People with no intent to cause harm will generally abide by these signs and never cause any problems for the hard barriers - such as metal detectors. Metal detectors will filter out those who cannot seem to figure out what a sign means, and help to deter a number who may have harmful intent (they are, generally, not going to defeat a lot of diabolical plans - just deter most people from acting on any hateful agendas they may have). Your next 'soft reactionary barrier' would be things like intelligence resources and profiling. The flustered mom with three kids is probably not going to blow up the plane, just likely to kill security personnel and her kids being the source of her distress.

Your "QRF" are the Air Marshals - they react to situations as they develop in a dynamic manner, and are where about half, or more, of your resources are spent. They should be equipped to handle a wide range of situations, and trained to do so. And, perhaps most critically, they have to be on the planes and in sufficient numbers to cover the cabin.

It can't be much more expensive than bringing on enough people to do a pat-down of every person who gets on a plane. And it doesn't matter if it's a 90 year old or a 20 year old, a black person or a white person, or if they have a 6" box-cutter or a 2" box-cutter... or -how- they bypassed security. Someone is going to be there to deal with them when they cause trouble. The ultimate profile of someone who has the intent to do harm is someone who gets out of line on the airplane - put people on the plane to nip that problem in the bud. Have your general deterrents to keep every swinging dick with an agenda from causing trouble on the plane - but let your Air Marshals be the bulk of your defensive strategy, as they will be in the thick of whatever is going on and best able to adapt to the threat in real-time.

Originally posted by seeashrink

The racial profiling law means that if I'm out looking for drug activity and I see a Lincoln on 22 inch rims, painted with a Panthers football team logo, pounding out Fifty Cent at 90 decibels parked on a known drug corner occupied by two young black males in hoodies; unless I see drugs exchange hands I cannot investigate them at all.

Allow me to play devils advocate here.

What crime was committed by them that would warrant an investigation in the above scenario?

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
How do you profile someone who wants to blow up a plane (as an example)? It is absolutely impossible nowdays.

I took a Homeland Security class - yes I expect lots of eye rolls and gasps.....I did a research paper on Al-Qaeda. From my paper.....

Al-Qaeda's newest tactic is using westerners and American born people. Al-Qaeda is aware that Arabs are being singled out and know that they will have to recruit non-Arabs, women and children. "They are particularly interested in people with U.S. or other Western passports who defy the typical Al-Qaeda profile of the ‘young Arab male.’ In emphasizing technical capability, they can seek and recruit persons who already have particular technical knowledge in areas such as chemistry and engineering or operational skills such as bomb making or weapons use, rather than having to invest in developing all of these in basic recruits." (Borum, R., & Gelles, M., 2005)

Further, because Al-Qaeda has changed this tactic of recruiting it is becoming harder for intelligence to identify these operatives. They have legitimate passports and no criminal records. They do not stand out and match the Al-Qaeda stereotype anymore. (Scott, D. 2005.)

Bottom line. Profiling is no longer the best means of "fighting terrorism".

Yep, the terrorists have done some self profiling. Its going to be hard for them to recruit westerners at large. They will have to get them out of groups that have their own agneda and work together. Like Tim McVey. Or non-Arab muslims. These types of seed beds are most likely being watched. What they seem to be looking for today in westerners are "mules" unaware that they are being used. This is hard to pull off as well.

Still though if you see arab looking males unloading things under a bridge or stepping out of poorly parked vans....do call someone.

reply to post by whatukno

I don't know maybe his name???? Let you in on a something, there are alot of black Muslims. All part and parcel of the profiling. You look for links to the crime. An Arabic sounding name that should be tagged at first notice. The profile will evolve depending on the specific info. Tell you what, I'd rather offend someone then allow a bomb to go off But with people in the states having such thin skins nowadays, law suits are the whiny way out.

My biggest problem with "anti-profiling" measures is that in order to do effective police work more laws are written to make nearly every behavior suspicious.

That earlier poster can't profile that Lincoln with the 22" rims but now we have a noise ordinance so he can approach because of the loud music but now that ordinance gets used against some guy remodeling his kitchen, building a garage or a nearby rifle range.

All across the country we're layering on more and more legislation likely to be abused against everyone just because some of PC bull.

So instead of limiting who gets harassed by the cops we're expanding it to everyone everywhere for any reason.

Police state born from "equality."


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by hangedman13

I don't know maybe his name????

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

So, any middle eastern sounding name now qualifies someone for enhanced searches? That's complete bull dunk.

If you would rather offend someone than let a bomb go off. Then, searching everyone is the option.