‘Profiling’ Is Not a Dirty Word
I recently wrote here about constitutional limitations on the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) strip and grope procedures. They subject us to the sorts of governmental control the Constitution was intended to prevent and violate Fourth Amendment prohibitions in ways highly up close and personal. Some illumination, albeit indirect, is shed by the Supreme Court’s 1968 decision in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the essence of which is that a search of one’s person must be reasonable and no more intrusive or degrading than the circumstances mandate. Searches shocking to ordinary human sensibilities fail to meet that test.
President Obama, whose public approval has reached a new low of thirty-nine percent, and his administration are under fire and are
belatedly grasping the political liabilities from the TSA screening uproar, but seem to have few options in dealing with the problem.
The new talking point word from the White House on the controversy is “balance” — with the suggestion that the Transportation Safety Administration would keep the same policies but look for ways to demonstrate more sensitivity. …
The consensus in the administration seems to be that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t do a good enough job of getting out in front of this story and communicating to travelers. This is the default position for the administration when political troubles arise: The product was fine, but the marketing was poor.
That seems pretty lame, and highly disruptive protests are likely and even a few protesters could be very disruptive. Some municipal officials are rebelling. It is not because of poor marketing. TSA Administrator Pistole stated that “not many people could have predicted” the latest outcry. That speaks poorly about Mr. Pistole’s ability to be proactive as well as his apparent perception that the American public is docile, eager to obey, and easy to control. His statement also suggests an incredible lack of situational awareness by those who devised the new TSA procedures.
Although the TSA, in response to a public uproar, is considering ways to make its procedures less objectionable in the long run, there are no plans for short term change “we can believe in.” Of perhaps some interest is this statement in the linked Reuters article:
Authorities … a year ago … prevented a Christmas Day attempt to blow up a flight to Detroit with a bomb hidden in a passenger’s clothes.
Would that it were true. The “authorities” didn’t do it; airline passengers did and were the first line of defense. Still, let it not be said that the TSA failed to do everything possible short of profiling and consistent with “CYA” to prevent a similar future occurrence.
Many consider the current TSA procedures necessary for our safety because we, as a society, are not prepared to engage in the cardinal sin of “profiling.” The TSA therefore insists on treating everyone the same — even those with significant medical conditions making it grossly improper to treat them that way. Here is a video of an interview with a bladder cancer survivor whose ostomy bag was messily and in humiliating fashion detached during a grope, even though he had several times cautioned the TSA agent who did it. Was it reasonable to treat him “just like everybody else”? Might a competently trained groper paid and deserving more than a near minimum wage have avoided the problem? That sort of thing, while bad, is merely one symptom of “treat everybody the same except when it is politically correct to do otherwise.”
There is an unfortunate tendency to think in terms of bumper stickers; when they are too complex, labels — racism, sexism, and profiling — are used. There are three basic steps in the labeling process:
Give something bad a label;
Apply the same label to other things;
Treat them as though they were all the same.
Here is one definition of profiling:
Profiling refers to the law enforcement practice of the detention, interdiction, or other disparate treatment of an individual on the basis of the racial or ethnic status of such individual.
Terrorists are not distinguishable from non-terrorists on the basis of race or ethnicity because they are of different races and come from different countries; there have been black and non-black, Arab and non-Arab, terrorists from the United States and elsewhere.
Sensible people profile daily, and not only for law enforcement purposes. A guy walking into a convenience store with a bag over his head and carrying something which appears to be a pistol may intend to rob the store; he may just be en route to a Halloween party, but inherent situational awareness certainly makes us legitimately concerned. “Profiling” is commonly used by the police: if a young Latina (female) is seen robbing a gasoline station, the police presumably concentrate their investigations on young Latinas rather than on elderly males appearing to be Swedish — not because all young Latinas are considered more likely to rob gasoline stations but because the robber of that gasoline station was a young Latina.
is profiling unconstitutional? is the TSA groping or looking at a scan of passengers’ naked bodies unconstitutional? sounds like it’s a choice of which part of the constitution is preferable to transgress.
You might try reading the constitution before making blanket statements like that.
Fourth Amendment states that probable cause allows a limited suspending of the right to privacy. So if you’re acting like a terrorist, it’s fine to check you out to make sure you aren’t one. The police don’t pull over every car, or cars at random, they pull over cars that are swerving dangerously, or cars with stuff flying out of the windows, etc.
You might want to check the actual wording of the Forth Amendment. Privacy is not mentioned. Some may believe it is implied. Also, drunk driver check point have been ruled legal, and all vehicles are stopped and the driver interrogated.
I think privacy is part of being free.
What the courts rule does not mean the ruling is proper and right, not to mention complies with the Constitution. The courts have ruled, for example, that illegal Mexicans in CA have the right to instate university tuition, while Americans outside CA have not. Nowhere in the Constitution it says that the government has the right to own 90% of a state’s land, yet most of the West is owned by the federal government.
The Bill of Rights is more or less destroyed, misinterpreted, and ignored.
I think the question comes down to reasonable search/probable cause. Drunk driving checkpoints are usually done on holidays or other days when it’s common that lots of people drink- New Years, probably area football games, etc. It’s known that lots of people will have been drinking, and having the checkpoints has been considered reasonable for public safety. However- do they use a breathalizer on everyone? Make everyone get out of their cars to walk the line, do whatever speaking tests they choose, or any of the other checks for intoxication? Or do talk to each driver briefly and pull over the ones who either have alcohol on the breath, or are showing any signs indicating drinking or intoxication? My guess is it’s the latter, and so, it’s a control point, but the searches are covered by probable cause, although maybe they do make everyone puff into the breathalizer.
As for the tsa screens- traveling in and of itself is not probable cause, or at least, not to me. If I’ve passed the initial screening (metal detector, and/or chatting to the educated-in-body language screening agent) and my luggage is clear, there isn’t cause to strip search me (even digitally, since that’s exactly what it is), or do a thorough physical pat down. What’s being argued by the TSA is that wanting to take a plane, in and of itself, is probable cause enough to warrant elevated search techniques. If that proves true, then will the police be able to point to the attempted car bomb at times square to be reasonable grounds for cause to search any driver at whim (let alone the successful bombing of the OKC federal building)? Do we see these procedures at Amtrak or other train stations? There have been several attacks on trains world wide, and ours are just as vulnerable. If these were reasonable or even functional processes, you’d see other groups and institutions using them. You do not, even in other parts of the world with known terrorist activity (Islamic or homegrown separatists, such as in basque country in Spain).
I hate “slippery slope” thoughts, but in this case, I have them. The TSA seems to not be willing to hire and train to the job- i.e., situational awareness, body language and obvious signs of duress (and discerning between being scared of traveling and being under duress because you’re going to blow yourself up). There are no questions, no checks, and so far, each procedure that they institutionalize seems to fail. If the next attack or attempt is by a bomb inserted you-know-where (male or female- least we forget, some suicide-attacks in other parts of the world have been made by women), will that be sufficient cause to give everyone and intensive xray or full body seach including cavity? By the current logic of the TSA and its supporters, I’d reluctantly think, YES. Extending it further, should a terrorist use a child…
So, all the talk of whether there is a right to privacy in the 4th amendment is to me, moot. It’s a question of whether they are being reasonable- since your person and property are protected from unreasonable search and seizure. I’d say the TSA fails to pass this muster.
So now we have to be on the lookout for Muslims with “poop chute bombs”! Is there no level they won’t stoop to in order to murder a few infidels?
Someone wrote recently “This (profiling) may sound harsh in a country that values Freedom of Religion.” The fact, discussed at length on many websites and books, is that “Freedom of Religion” does NOT apply to islam, because islam is NOT a religion but a dangerous and barbaric death cult that demands total obedience from its followers in everything they do, and I mean everything – even how to clean yourself after doing a “big job” in the toilet. It is a totalitarian political agenda based on an ideology of the worst kind – to take over the world, literally.
Likewise the type of profiling that Israel practices for flying with El Al does not involve racial profiling, but behaviour profiling of the most in-depth kind. Israel knows more about the passengers the minute they book a flight than the passengers probably know about themselves. Israel security has access to a plethora of databases with which they can match your name. It is only those passengers that seem not to be travelling for good reasons that are subjected to more tight security checks. El Al hasn’t had a security scare on any of its flights for years and years because of this. Another good way they keep potential terrorists at bay is that every El Al flight has armed marshalls on the flight, and they make it plain that if any passenger does anything to endanger the flight they will be shot dead on the spot – period.
In addition, I cannot see “racial profiling” referring to muslims… because islam is not a race, therefore saying that profiling muslims is “racial profiling” is utter nonsense.
I think that the USA has gone the wrong way completely with their high-tech scanners and frighteningly invasive “pat downs”. The TSA should take a lesson from Israel… Israel’s security checks are not “racial” profiling, and that idiot John Pistole has not enough brains in his head to fill a thimble if he thinks that what Israel does is “profiling”. I wonder if he has any stocks in the companies that produce the back-scatter naked scan machines, like others … capitalistic corruption at its worst. The federal DOJ should start a huge inquiry as to how these people were advised to buy shares in the comapnies that make the invasive machines.
I’m sorry, but the USA, with its corrupt politicians and business people who are screwing the general public right and left, is going down the tube quickly, and that is a shame – a terrible shame for a once proud and stupendously strong country that in the past was the guiding light to the rest of the world. Corruption, lobbying and greed has just about put that light out now.
The fourth amendment clearly states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons…against unreasonable search and seizures shall not be violated”. Why are we waiting to apply this to the outrageous violations by TSA?
Astounding…our entire security apparatus held hostage because of the ludicrous beliefs of a small subset of the American people.
I say profile away, and to hell with the nay-sayers.
And when the day comes when you are subject to racial profiling? Who will speak for you?
Like hell someone like me will ever be profiled. I am a good christian god fearing american. its only those sand loving muslims that want to attack
The so-called ‘underwear bomber’ could have been identified by profiling, even if the profile was as narrow as ‘those persons having a parent who stridently warned US authorities not to give his son a visa because his son was an Al-Qaeda terrorist’.
The attitude of government officials is that those who are objecting to the TSA foolishness are just not taking the terrorist threat seriously. But I think the public objection is based on the understanding that the government is not taking the threat seriously enough to apply intelligence to it (in multiple senses of the word).
R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr. of American Spectator on November 18 took a stand against opposition to the new TSA procedures and wrote somewhat disparagingly about the “Drudge gang” and its enablers. He has changed his mind. Now he sees it a bit differently:
According to a Zogby pol, overall 61% of the 2,032 likely voters polled from Nov. 19 to Nov. 22, oppose the use of full body scans and TSA pat downs. Republicans (69%) and Independents (65%) oppose in greater numbers than Democrats (50%). Fifty-two percent believe the enhanced security measures will not prevent terrorist activity, almost half (48%) say it is a violation of privacy rights, 33% say they should not have to go through enhanced security methods to get on an airplane, and 32% believe the full body scans and TSA pat downs to be sexual harassment. This is in line with frequent fliers (fly more than once every 3 months), as 53% say the enhanced measures will not prevent terrorist activity, 48% believe it’s a violation of their privacy rights, 41% say they should not have to go through it to get on an airplane, and 35% believe it is sexual harassment.
As on noon on November 24, no significant opt-out or other security related delays were reported. At the New Orleans airport,
It was reported that
A Google news search for “TSA, airport, Opt out” this morning provided lots of reports that the protests had failed and that travel conditions were normal.
On the other hand, the We Won’t Fly blog reports that
At LAX, the Los Angeles Airport, one hundred and thirty-three passengers opted out of scanning and were groped. Although there have been passenger reports of scanning machines having been turned off, a TSA spokesperson denied it. There are some interesting comments here.
A representative of the American Automobile Association said, “‘We’re expecting 94 percent of all holiday travelers to go by automobile’ . . . up 12 percent from last year.” That makes sense; even without regard to the new TSA procedures flying has been a generally unpleasant experience for years and, despite bad weather, blizzard warnings and road maintenance construction travel by car has increased significantly.
Whatever the facts may be, on Thanksgiving Day we must all show gratitude to President Obama for the wonders he hath wrought; for the
And not only that, he promised to pardon the biggest turkey ever.
Did you ever notice that the TSA always institutes these procedures AFTER an attempted terrorist attack? AFTER a terrorist tried to blow up his shoes on a flight, we then had our shoes examined. AFTER some terrorists tried to bring some liquid explosives on to a plane in England, liquids were banned. AFTER a terrorist tried to blow up his underwear, all of our underwear had to be examined. So what will the terrorists have to do next that the TSA will not have anticipated? We always react to the last near disaster. Time to stop this and start interviewing passengers properly before they get on the plane. We should be profiling and doing it the right way, like the Israelis do. Time to be proactive and not wait for the next terrorist attack before discovering the next thing we should be doing.
The obvious answer is the TSA will begin either full body x-rays or body cavity searches AFTER the next devout Muslim murders more infidels with a POOP CHUTE BOMB. Even a finger wave might not be enough if they take the next logical step and surgically insert explosives into the body of the next Islamic faithful seeking his 72 virgins and rivers of honey.
It all depends on what the meaning of Constitution is. Ask most any former and present Supreme Court justice.
Every president and every supreme court ushers in a new interpretation of the constitution.
Obama and all the other lefties have it wrong. The constitution doesn’t have to protect anyone but true citizens of this country. Every time we try and help out some backwards country we end up being attacked. What’s the point?
Really there is only one question left for me in considering the new TSA polic(e)y.
The pilots have been excluded from search and grope procedures. Makes sense to me.
But now what about muslims and in particular muslim women in garb. Will we exclude them too because of their religious sensibilities. CAIR has asked for as much.
This would not surprise me in the least with the politically correct amateurs in this administration. Then I would ask. What exactly have we accomplished?
Also does anyone think we should be patting down and scanning the 500,000 illegals from all countries crossing our borders each year.
Oh and should we tell people coming here from other countries that they need to be scanned and patted down before leaving their country.
Wandering and Wondering in an increasingly bizarre America.
This current nonsensical shying away from “offending” is contributing directly to our insecurities.
Muslim/Islamist travelers can just stay away from airplanes.
They should instead aim their very contrived “taking offense” activism towards their co-religionists who are the direct cause of the current mayhem and murder.
All of the rest of us should become very aware of “Lawfare” as practiced by those Muslim/Islamists. These Muslim/Islamists living in the United States have no where to look to cast their “blame” activism other than the nearest mirror.
Where is the Muslim/Islamist activism against Muslim/Islamist Terrorism?
This is rank hypocrisy on their part. Rank hypocrisy.
You are so right. It’s islam that started all this mayhem and chaos since 1972 with their first hijackings and aircraft bombings.
Personally…I’d punish all Muslims until they squealed so loud that they’d be forced to confront their co “religionists” intoi submission. A simple fatwa issued by one of their chief imam’s ought to be easy enough one would think. Calling jihad against civilians a crime and ordering their beheading in the name of allah.
Further…I’d banish all trade and inbound flights from any ME airline associated with terrorism or terrorists. Iran, Yemen, Lebanon…all of them. What the hell do we need from them anyway? Anyone remember the last PC or chip they’ve engineered or discovered? Any scientific advances in medicine, literature? When was the last time they designed an aircraft or a wheel barrow? Or even an islamic screwdriver? Or any other contribution to mankind? Have they ever responded to calamities around the world? Rescued those from earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes or massive flooding?
We…do not need them, period. Once the entire muslim world gets squeezed….they’ll soon dump the arsewipes that have caused these problems. Until then….they must all suffer equally and put the blame where it belongs. ON Islam.
I wonder if people are going to willing submit to the finger waggle when the next bomber puts his explosives in his anal cavity to avoid detection by the scanner or grope methods. It is not a huge leap to see this one coming, so why isn’t the government working on a truly effective plan to prevent this, Israeli like profiling. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the government will be gathering huge amounts of personal data, but they must have some information to ensure you are you (biometrics perhaps).
This is opposed by so many because there would be lots of unintended consequences, like finding out who is in the country legally and illegally. If you force everyone to have a passport (national ID, oh no), then travel patterns for that passport (are already being tracked internationally) could include domestic flights quite easily. I know that it is a lose of our freedom of movement, but is it really? I wish this was a different world, but knowing who is on our airplanes and where they have been, isn’t as intrusive as having a useless scan or a nice fondling by your government. Tell me where I am wrong and I will change my point of view.
“When you give the government a finger, it’ll take the whole hand,” is the problem.
The fact of the matter is that there is very little the government or private companies – or anyone willing to find out – does not know about us. (Compare that to European countries where compiling such a databases is illegal. A club, for example, can collect only the name and address, and at times, the phone number of a member.) So, in a sense we’re already screwed, and ‘losing’ a little bit more privacy shouldn’t be a problem but, unfortunately, who does trust the government anymore?
In addition to all kinds of face-recognition programs, eye-scanners are being developed that are capable to scan to a distance of 15 to 20 feet (such as the Honeywell’s CFAIRS). I’ve been certified by the government as a good guy numerous times. They’ve all the necessary information about me to let me bypass the security checks. I’d not mind providing them my iris scan if that would allow me to avoid the TSA thugs completely.
We’ve the technology to make law-abiding Americans’ lives quite comfortable and the bad guys’ increasingly unpleasant. We can find, track and kill anyone with the newest tracking systems from micro-drones to spy-sensors that tag and track the enemy or us, the law-abiding Americans.
The question remains: are you willing (do you trust) to offer that finger for any other reason than flipping the bird?
Profiling is a dirty word used to describe an intelligent, common sense, but politically incorrect practice. All of us are being inconvenienced because of a tiny tiny number of potential terrorists. The solution is for people to be pre-screened into two categories: those who are clearly safe and those who need to be checked out, patted down and cavity searched. Imam Rauf would fall into the latter category. Of course that wouldn’t work because you would have screeners with the mentality of Mayor Bloomberg who would exclude the Imam Raufs of this world from the second category.
Unfortunately, there are Muslims in America and there is no going back. Welcome to the world of Political Correctness where societies which kill women for the crime of being raped are the equivalent of our own. And under the hyper-clueless Obama, they get to criticize our human rights record at the U.N.
No going back?
I think it will be sooner rather than later that more and more Americans understand that a political philosophy disguised as a religion — the core tenet of which is the subjugation of the entire world and that is therefore incompatible with our Constitution and subversive of our government — must be dealt with accordingly.
Here is one man’s brave and rational attempt to come to terms with the dilemma we face, delivered in February 2009, at the Preserving Western Civilization conference:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/012935.html
“Terrorism is not the fault of most Muslims or …”
I’m not buying that anymore. I don’t buy the ‘religion of peace,’ or Islam has been ‘hijacked by a few extremist’ either. Islam is very clear about its goal and means to reach that objective, the Dar al-Islam.
Those ‘Muslims’ that do not adhere to the teachings of Islam are not Muslims at all. Those who do are the enemy, aiding and abetting, not unlike the blue wall of silence by the cops.
I think we’ve reached the point when the ‘Muslims’ ought to prove that they’re not the enemy. The percentage of Muslims, according to numerous Gallups and polls, who support jihad, not to mention is anti-American and anti-infidel, is high enough to consider every Muslim as a potential enemy.
I’d rather people quit defending the enemy, real, potential or not. I feel almost sorry for those ‘Muslims’ who are decent, hardworking, ordinary people. Then I recall what has transpired and the will to stay alive, protect myself and my family takes over. I must discriminate and profile to survive.
And so should our government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/24/uk-based-taliban-afghanistan
“British-based men of Afghan origin are spending months at a time in Afghanistan fighting Nato forces before returning to the UK, the Guardian has learned. They also send money to the Taliban.
“I work as a minicab driver,” said the man, who has the rank of a mid-level Taliban commander.”
YES! Thank you, I was afraid to say it. If you aren’t into overturning every other religion and government in the world, you aren’t a Muslim!
It would just make sense for them to turn to Christianity. We all remember what Anne Coulter said: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” Doesn’t sound so crazy now, does it?
The mind boggles at the lengths the TSA go to “be stupid.” An acquaintance of mine recently was boarding a flight from Iraq, where he’d been deployed for a year. His nail clippers were confiscated…while everyone was allowed to board carrying their M4s. My friend was even able to carry onboard a Gerber combat knife. But no nail clippers, oh no.
The TSA agents are not allowed to think for themselves. They are not allowed to work on a case by case basis. They must follow the rules, to the T, always.
See! This is what our government gives us. Our men and boys are over seas work day and night protecting our freedoms. And when they finally get to come home some damn lackee says you can’t take those harmless clippers but that gun and knife are free to go. What the hell is up with that?
The truly sad part in all of this is the TSA is not using the safest least invasive technology. But then, who has ever heard of a bureaucracy being proactive, let alone up to date? And, again, “It’s the message, NOT the policy!” Just listen to them!!! They’ll tell you!!!
I agree with #4, The rights of many are twisted because of attention paid to CAIR and other representatives of the Muslim religion. This happens again and again as some Muslims protest rules for so many things….drivers’ licences, awimming poola, etc. The brouhaha about construction of the mosque near the WTC site emphasized this and when it was discovered that public funds were being requested for the construction, that was just too much. The basic right to free speech is challenged again and again as those who verbalize disgust or fear are accused of being bigots or anti-Muslim.
The only people who love to do the PC mumble-mouth dance are the elites and the media. They have deliberately imposed it on themselves to better promote their own self-serving agenda.
Everyone else is capable of sane speech and there is no reason under the sun, why we should not expect sane and reasonable dialogue from these groups of nit-wits.
In no small part they represent the country. And THEY make the country look like only idiots, like themselves, live there.
So the only people who care bout anyone else outside of their own personal bubble are the elitists and the media? If so, I will gladly call myself an elitist.
I can take pride that as an American I can stand up for those with lesser rights than myself. I know that through hard work and determination I can achieve anything here. Why should I say that someone else shouldn’t because a few people with similar genealogy have done bad things?
Why aren’t we profiling white people? The Oklahoma city bombings from a few years back? That was a significant event and yet no one cared because it hit to close to home. Someone that was just like them did something terrible, so people dismissed it as a fluke event, could never happen again. And yet every day white people go out and kill senselessly. But when a few people of Arab descent commit a similar act in nature, everyone like them is profiled for the actions of a few. It is far easier to fear an unknown, then try to understand it. On those grounds, I am proud to say I am your elitist. I understand that their is bad in every culture, every “race” and in every person.
Hardcore lefty? Well, let me clue you in. Profiling works. It has saved lives and this country in the past. It’s something that’s not pretty but it has to be done. While people like you sit and whine that people aren’t being treated fairly, people like me are out there working hard to make sure you can enjoy you elitist media and bleeding heart stories.
The world isn’t perfect, and I’m just trying to live the best way I can in it.
Sounds like you are reading from the standard lefty handbook there. Think for yourself and come back.
you mad bro?
Combating political correctness means taking on the entire education establishment where multiculturalism is enshrined as having a higher value than the Constitution. Much of what is wrong with our country has roots there and formerly had its greatest flowering in the universities. But the Fort Hood massacre shows that it flourishes even more in the military bureaucracy.
TSA reminds me of the Wise Men of Chelm. Townsmen of Chelm read in the papers about wonderful curative powers of the turkish bath. Naturally they decided to construct one, but being short on stone they built if out of wood. After first use, one of the patrons got a splinter in his foot. The town council met in session to combat the problem of potential splinters, and came up with the wise solution: the floorboards will be polished. However, someone pointed out that the new floors might be to slippery. After careful consideration the wise men announced the perfect solution: floorboards will be polished (to prevent splinters), but will be laid face down (so no one will slip).
Council on American-Islamic Relations: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.” – Omar Ahmad (CAIR co-founder).
Addressing a youth session at the 1999 Islamic Association for Palestine’s annual convention in Chicago, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) founder Omar Ahmad praised suicide bombers who “kill themselves for Islam,”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52184
Global Jihad advances greatly, not because of cruel Islamo Fascists, but because of weak, rabidly pro-Islam, Western enabler leaders. U.S. Airport Security is Deliberately and Shockingly Destroyed for U.S. leaders’ top FAVORITE, Islam:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com
Controversial Muslim group
gets VIP airport security tour
Feds show CAIR latest screening steps,
sensitive counterterrorism procedures
August 18, 2006
The Department of Homeland Security
took a Muslim group with known past ties to terror organizations on a VIP tour of security operations at the nation’s busiest airport at the same time British authorities were working to break up a plot to blow up U.S. airlines.
On June 21, a senior DHS official from Washington personally guided Muslim officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations on a behind-the-scenes tour of Customs screening operations at O’Hare International Airport in response to CAIR complaints that Muslim travelers were being unfairly delayed as they entered the U.S. from abroad.
CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, identified by two former FBI counterterrorism chiefs as a “front group” for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Several CAIR leaders have been convicted on terror-related charges.
During the airport tour, CAIR was taken on a walk through the point-of-entry, Customs stations, secondary screening and interview rooms. In addition, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were asked to describe for CAIR representatives various features of the high-risk passenger lookout system.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51573
’“One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory.”
—Former Algerian President Houari Boumedienne’s prophetic warning to Europe in a speech at the U.N. In 1974.
In Sweden, many Muslim youth wear a t-shirt proclaiming: “2030-then we take over”
15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia.
Experts say that over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence. The Saudi strategy is global. Saudis invested $70-80 billion in their worldwide jihad project over three decades. Saudi Arabia finances the global jihad, yet for years, we have been told Saudi Arabia is our ally. An ally that seeks Muslim conquest over America! Does this mean U.S. leaders approve and support cruel Muslim conquest of America (and the Free World) ?
Patriotic, America-loving Americans are the losers. The government, the terrorists and CAIR and other American Muslim Brotherhood connected groups are the winners.
CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) declares Muslim women should only have pat-downs on the head and neck and also do self pat downs. In response to Hamas front group, CAIR, Napolitano says she is considering allowing Muslim women to pat themselves. As the Muslim religion is the only ‘religion’ that is blowing up people and airplanes, it is obvious that the US government (and CAIR) don’t want to protect innocents from massive Muslim attacks and atrocities.
Why does the government not use the highly successful Israeli airport security system? The reason they don’t is because they clearly want a system that is NOT successful. They much prefer to perpetrate degrading sexual assaults and health destroying, cancer causing body scanners. They choose to give Muslim terrorists a massive victory; great delight and enormous laughter over U.S. government’ 24/7 hostile attacks on patriotic Americans at the airport. And when this anti-freedom, anti-human rights insecure system produces an Islamic terror attack(s), the attack(s) will be voraciously seized as an opportunity to take away more of our freedom and human rights by the power hungry.
This great nation once stood for justice, freedom and human rights. A beacon of light. How dim that light has become.
Incompetence and possible complicity.
The only solution seems to be a DO NOT FLY period self imposed by the public followed by a massive repudiation of ALL LIBERAL PRINCIPLES. A purge of every federal administration of all unnecessary personnel and all those with public liberal leanings. It’s do or die. One can beat around the bush forever but we know where the problems come from. Let’s roll.
Arise entrepreneurs, it is time to one up our Totally Sexual Administrators. In the old days there was a card game called “Pit”. Lets develop a today’s computer game called “Grow-Pit”.
The player gets to choose one victim from a group of appropriately dressed travelers with all views of the victims facing front only, no profiles. Then using his or her mouse, one may search for the body-bomb using any technique that comes to mind. You win when you hear the hapless traveler cry from your computer speaker, “Oh, oh, OWE, do it again”.
What the TSA is doing is appalling. However, to suggest that the solution is to only do it to people who “look like a terrorist” (i.e. not like Timothy McVeigh) is also appalling. Your first poster is on the right track here:
The thing is, regardless of whether it’s done to everyone or only to brown people, you’re going to put a lot of innocent people through this indignity. So perhaps it’s appropriate that all kinds of Americans (and visitors) should experience for themselves what people have to go through for the sake of their supposed safety.
A few points: Timothy McVeigh did not act alone. The FBI failed to investigate John Doe #3 who happened to be an Iraqi. His name is known and he was identified by witnesses.
All of the terrorist attacks have involved Islamists. The issue then is ensuring that this class of people are profiled. If they have been to Pakistan or Afghanistan then they need to be searched. If they join in online Jihadi forums they deserve greater attention.
The shoe bomber had blond hair and blue eyes, yet he had an Islamic Alias. What should be kept in mind is that his bomb failed. Ditto for the underwear bomber, his bomb was a failure. It was tested and it failed.
Al Qaeda is laughing at “those stupid Americans” because every time the USA reacts to some situation, more and more Americans are being disrupted, and that is the purpose of these smaller failed attacks.
Even with the recent parcel bombs, you have to consider that there was a dry run. If the authorities knew that there was a dry run, why did they fail to act in a more hasty manner in order to have prevented the bombs from leaving Yemen?
These parcel bombs were also meant to disrupt American business and of course there has been the implementation of stupid new rules which applies to other countries not involved in the plot, such as Japan and Australia.
The situation is really quite hopeless until Homeland Security pulls its finger out of where the sun don’t shine, and starts to be proactive. Forget about checking liquids, forget about checking laptops and shoes. These checks are not necessary and do not happen in other countries.
The most classic failure has to have been that of allowing the underwear bomber to board an aircraft to the USA at Amsterdam. What were the authorities thinking? They let him board that flight without the proper papers, and without the proper security checks… epic fail Janet.
I did some googling for this “John Doe No. 3″ and all I came up with were a bunch of references on messageboards, blogs, etc, mostly associated with conspiracy theories and the like. The Wikipedia entry on the bombing does mention a “John Doe No. 2″, but not a No. 3. Most tellingly, the FBI’s own page on the bombing seems to make no mention of this, so until I see better evidence than some posts on messageboards I’m more than a little skeptical about this claim.
Timothy McVeigh= one white man years ago.
USS Cole+9/11+Mumbai+London 2005+many attempted plots= Muslims, middle-eastern looking Muslims.
Maybe the Muslims will look for white people to do their bidding, then we’re in trouble. But til’ then, every Muslim man, woman, and child (remember decoy baby-bombs in Vietnam) should get the full inspection.
I profile everyday. We all do.
I profile when I’m walking with my two daughters along a major city’s street and come to a wide alley that is a shortcut to our destination. I see a lone, younger male, dressed sloppily in the alley walking lazily toward us, fifty yards away. There is no one else around, not at the other end of the alley, not anywhere near our entry into it. Profile data points noted; change of plan decided: We will walk the extra distance to avoid the alley.
We all profile. Only for the left, because its highest virtue is non-discrimination (very counter-productive to survival, btw) is profiling an evil. And these are the same liberal/leftists who cling to survival of the fittest. Go figure. Sounds more like a suicide pact to me.
As I commented on Clayton Cramer’s post on profiling a couple of days ago,
“Amidst all the furore over profiling, what’s forgotten is that before 9/11, aviation security routinely profiled.
I’m Irish. In the 90’s I worked in Iran. Flying through the UK and US on vacations I was routinely profiled: Irish + Middle East stamps in Passport = maybe IRA, therefore thorough bag search and a game of 20 questions. One young security officer in Manila at the Northwest check-in got very visibly nervous when he saw all the ME stamps, my pre-check in interview took almost half an hour, and that was in 1995!
I understood what was happening and I didn’t think it unreasonable.”
It is not true that profiling was never a part of aviation security.
What has happened is that after 9/11, sensible and reasonable profiling, i.e., use of available information ensure best use of finite resources by assigning relative priorities to passengers in determining whether they should be searched, has been ABANDONED.
Until PC dies and sanity is restored profiling will never happen in this Country.
BTW, a distributor for the Scanners said that one session of nakedness is the equivalent of 100 chest x-rays. No wonder they haven’t disclosed RADS.
And the bidness about radiation at altitude is tripe. That sort is gamma radiation the naked scanners use man made x-rays.
Here is an interesting article about some adherents to the Religion of Peace and another about a young female person in England, a video of whose burning of a Koran was posted on Facebook:
In this article it is reported that
In this article, it is reported that
The young schoolgirl in England presumably will not be hung for her obscene offense. Will the leniency of her punishment result in anarchy?
Good grief.
Were any of you aware that several prominent people are invested in these body scanners, including John Kerry and his wife, Michael Chertoff, and George Soros.
Miller’s approach using Terry is a mistake and makes me question if he really gets the whole search and seizure issue. From my website:
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/11/28/who-is-dan-miller-at-pjm-and-why-is-he-an-expert-on-safety/
I’ve got twenty years of street level experience dealing with Terry vs Ohio. It is not the direction you want to go in when complaining about airport security. Here is a piece of the post-
…Is he competent in the area of constitutional limits on search and seizures? His reach into Terry vs. Ohio as a comparative example for airport security suggests he may be a little shaky. Is he right on complaining. Absolutely! The searches and security have gone far too far for the amount of safety they provide. However, throwing Terry into the mix is not really the direction he should go in. I know about Terry since I spent almost all my career interacting with criminals on the street, in dark alleys, or up to no good in some fashion or another. Police officers (or detectives like myself) have to think on their feet as the situation unfolds to make sure they aren’t overstepping their authority even as the environment becomes riskier and riskier every second. I’ve both won and lost cases in interpretation of Terry by a judge or lawyer months after I did what I thought was proper on the street. I get it.
Where Miller gets sidetracked is between the justification of a search prompted by suspicious circumstances and the actual ability to secure a person in a restricted environment in order to make sure that person is not a threat. Here is part of Miller’s Findlaw link explaining this-
(b) The officer’s search was confined to what was minimally necessary to determine whether the men were armed, and the intrusion, which was made for the sole purpose of protecting himself and others nearby, was confined to ascertaining the presence of weapons. Pp. 29-30.
In that one section alone Terry leaves the reservation, so to speak, and shouldn’t be used to either support or undermine airport security….
The point I agree with Miller on is the issue of profiling. I taught class for civilians in my department and often explained what police did when they profiled by using my “blue haired, club-footed, midget” example-
http://truthandcommonsense.com/2010/04/25/telling-the-story-of-blue-haired-club-footed-midgets-and-stopping-a-known-drug-dealers/
At the end of the class, many people of liberal persuasion would adjust their point of view on the matter. Sometimes it is what it is. Michelle Malkin shows everyone with photos what I did with words-
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/11/27/just-another-bomb-plotting-jihadist-yelling-allahu-akbar/
Like I said in my post, I applaud Miller in his attempt to expose the violations committed by the airport security. His desire to link it to illegal search and seizure issues is where he goes off the tracks. As I said in the post, that train has left the station a long time ago.
I suggest you concentrate on the stupidity that is the politically correct policies of the TSA and the unprofessional performance of its employees. Seriously, how is it the “random” search policy, designed not to offend Muslims, ends up with good looking girls with hooters being pulled aside? Or kids? Or nuns?
You want to clean that up, file those lawsuits, keep up the pressure, but mostly refuse to re-elect anyone who supports it and don’t fly as much. Sadly, money and politics will correct any abuse quicker than being right about it.
In the article, I noted that
The illumination was indirect because Terry principally involved the exclusionary rule. I cited Terry for the stated proposition, in the context of airport security, and not to define what a police officer is or is not permitted to do in very different criminal situations. I think we have gone too far in dumping terrorist activity into the ordinary criminal activity context. They are different and should be treated differently.
In your article you assert,
Demanding that all passengers “empty their pockets” incident to boarding an airliner does not strike me as more intrusive or degrading than the circumstances mandate. Nor does it appear to shock ordinary human sensibilities; as you note, “nobody complained.” On the other hand, lots of people have complained about the current TSA strips and gropes.
Depending on the circumstances, the exclusionary rule and its progeny the “fruit of the poison tree” rule preclude the introduction into evidence in a criminal trial of the results of unlawful searches and of the evidentiary fruits of those searches. Ditto written and oral statements. That is one way of preventing official conduct deemed unconstitutional in a criminal context and it has probably gone too far; that happens in multiple contexts, as we well know from the distension of the Commerce Clause. In my view, the primary purpose of airport security is to prevent terrorist activity; getting convictions is a very different and lesser matter.
Without regard to the merits of the exclusionary doctrine, the Constitution applies and if, as I consider them to be, the current TSA procedures are both unreasonable and far more intrusive and degrading than the circumstances mandate, and “shocking to ordinary human sensibilities,” they do not comport with the Fourth Amendment limitations discussed here.
As the Fourth Amendment problems of the new TSA procedures become evident to more people, particularly those in positions to do something about them, I hope and suspect that they will change. I disagree with the notion that the Fourth Amendment “train has . . . left long ago” and think that it will leave the station only as we permit it to. It may even back up a bit if we demand it.
“I disagree with the notion that the Fourth Amendment “train has . . . left long ago” and think that it will leave the station only as we permit it to. It may even back up a bit if we demand it.”
As a strict constitutionalist I say from your lips to God’s ears, but I fear our government no longer responds to legal prodding when the progressives’ interests are at stake. They’ll push the conservative efforts back, but not the ones that support a more intrusive government. As we speak about issues I think you’ll lose on, this administration is pushing other agendas about how we light our homes, use energy, drive cars, use cell phones, use the Internet, if they can monitor our emails, track our phones and apparently how we eat our food.
Seriously, do you think they’ll pay attention to something as basic as the fourth amendment? No. Sadly, there is a very large element of progressive politicians and bureaucrats in government who believe they have the right to control our lives.
Want an example? The two federal judges who just ruled on one of the first challenges to Obamacare. One, as I understand it, said the plaintiff had no standing(a cute punt) and the other nearly cracked a rib twisting himself a pretzel around the commerce clause to justify the government mandating you buy something against your will.
Add Kelo to the mix and you can understand why I’m not a great believer in using the fourth as a lever to back the government off of their desire to grope your groin.
Again, I suggest using the power of the dollar to push this issue. Don’t fly or fly less. Opt out. Complain to your congressman and if they don’t do something fire them. It might take a couple of years, but how long will court challenges take to work their way up to the SP?
The federal government has only the power your grant it as citizens. That will not always be the case though. Sooner or later we’ll find ourselves in a nation run by a government that runs the media, runs the healthcare, runs the high tax/low opportunity economy. Just another Britain, except with three hundred million confused and disheartened citizens.
Oh, and of course this.
http://www.floppingaces.net/2010/12/03/obama-makes-us-even-more-dependent-on-foreign-oil-reader-post/
Never use terms like ‘profile, ‘profiling,’ etc. They have been poisoned by the left. I think it is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate them, even though they are accurate descriptions of what we need to do.
Instead, use terms like ‘observed behavior’ and ‘record checking’ that are harder to distort and condemn.
Those terms, if I understand them correctly, I would back in practice. I only fear that ‘observed behavior’ would eventually go down that path of I observed you being brown, therefore you must submit to my questioning. Sort of the colloquialism of D.W.B. (Driving While Black) that pops up in blogs.
John Galt: you seem like a reasonable person. But if we decide — rationally, in my opinion — to check people based on background, behavior, articles carried and dress, etc., it should not matter if we call it ‘profiling’ or ‘record checking’ or ‘find the terrorist bastard’.
Bottom line: profiling happens. Cops do it all the time; it’s part of how they do their job. In a previous lifetime, when I was a military policeman, I got so that I knew who would cause me trouble and who wouldn’t. I also could spot offenders on sight sometimes, and might not even know what it was that caught my attention.
Policemen do this, and our security people should. The problem is not with profiling; the problem is when a policeman uses such techniques with prejudice. But we don’t ban a tool because it can be misused by Stupid People, do we? (If we did, we’d have no police at all.)
Muslims at airports will continue to be viewed with greater suspicion — if not by security, then by the rest of us. This is not mere prejudice; it unfortunately happens to be true that airline terrorists have been predominantly Muslim, far out of proportion to their numbers among the flying population.
We don’t have to like it. But we should recognize it, and act accordingly, particularly if we can save innocent lives by doing so.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline