Friday, September 16, 2005
In Defense of Racial Profiling
(For purposes of this discussion I will limit my self to profiling use in airport screening.)
Racial profiling is not a racist policy. It is a useful tool to those with limited resources. If you are working at a airport screening people, what do you have in your favor for searching people who might be hiding small weapons? How many people will pass by you each day? How do you decide whom to pull out for more extensive searches? How do you improve your odds of picking out someone with a weapon? The odds are if you searched everyone who came thru your station for a week you wouldn’t find a terrorist. But it’s that one time that one does come through that you are working to stop. How do you do it?
When we take those valuable and limited resources and go out of our way to avoid offending Muslims by searching elderly women who can hardly walk on there own, we are opening the door for potential tragedy. Let’s stop searching people who are clearly physically incapable of trying to take over a plane. If they can’t walk of there own power, they are probably not going to over power the rest of the passengers on commercial flight. This is not to say that we ONLY search those who fit the profile but consider them more carefully that is for sure. The strenuous effort to avoid the accusation of racism is going to end up costing us far more then price of the accusation.
Searching more Muslims does not mean you believe that ALL Muslims are terrorists. Nor does it imply they are the only ones who commit acts of terror. Of course there are the Tim McVeigh, or the IRA and others. Nor does it mean we hate Muslims. What it does mean, is that we recognize the realities of the War we are fighting. Al Qeada didn’t stop working on 9/11; they continued the terror campaign they had been on for a decade and other groups for years before them. And they will try again, and again, and again.
PS I don't have a link for it, but there was a great article in National Review recently on the subject, if i can find the link I'll add it later.
(For purposes of this discussion I will limit my self to profiling use in airport screening.)
Racial profiling is not a racist policy. It is a useful tool to those with limited resources. If you are working at a airport screening people, what do you have in your favor for searching people who might be hiding small weapons? How many people will pass by you each day? How do you decide whom to pull out for more extensive searches? How do you improve your odds of picking out someone with a weapon? The odds are if you searched everyone who came thru your station for a week you wouldn’t find a terrorist. But it’s that one time that one does come through that you are working to stop. How do you do it?
When we take those valuable and limited resources and go out of our way to avoid offending Muslims by searching elderly women who can hardly walk on there own, we are opening the door for potential tragedy. Let’s stop searching people who are clearly physically incapable of trying to take over a plane. If they can’t walk of there own power, they are probably not going to over power the rest of the passengers on commercial flight. This is not to say that we ONLY search those who fit the profile but consider them more carefully that is for sure. The strenuous effort to avoid the accusation of racism is going to end up costing us far more then price of the accusation.
Searching more Muslims does not mean you believe that ALL Muslims are terrorists. Nor does it imply they are the only ones who commit acts of terror. Of course there are the Tim McVeigh, or the IRA and others. Nor does it mean we hate Muslims. What it does mean, is that we recognize the realities of the War we are fighting. Al Qeada didn’t stop working on 9/11; they continued the terror campaign they had been on for a decade and other groups for years before them. And they will try again, and again, and again.
PS I don't have a link for it, but there was a great article in National Review recently on the subject, if i can find the link I'll add it later.
# posted by UCScottB4U @ 1:22 PM 
