Scissors, lighters, bottles of hand lotion, the Costitution of the United States...

[Dinner]

LotM, good point.

[DinoDoc]

Oerdin: Wouldn't that only serve to exclude you from the debate you wish to start?

[Dinner]

Please refer to comment about wanting to hear from people who don't just use trollish one liners. Thanks.

[DinoDoc]

Is that why your hand was so attracted to the reply button? Trolls (if that's what you think I am) don't exist when they aren't fed.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Thats in the US. IIUC in Britain and the continent there have been other examples of AQ using converts of non typical ethnic origin, and IIUC there is evidence that they actively pursue such converts, precisely for their usefulness in getting through security based on profiling.

How we handle passengers on inbound international flights is a somewhat different process from the routine screening/monitoring of passengers on domestic flights, and what other countries do or what they have as their specific threats isn't a primary concern to us. It's noteworthy, but not important until we have a similar spectrum of threats.

There have also been several cases in Israel of female suicide bombers, and just yesterday one in Iraq.

Yet we have no cases here of suicide bombers of either gender hitting the local WalMarts. They could certainly do some damage in airports, where everyone is bunched up waiting to get through security, but that hasn't been attempted, either, and it's certainly not due to significant preventative measures.

It takes a lot of ongoing contact (very hard to keep under the radar here) to motivate someone to make that sort of commitment to your ideology, and that sort of contact involves a whole chain of events, with people we'd very likely be tracking and listening to very early on in their attempts to reach converts. The results we've seen here are Padilla and little Johnie Walker.

And of course in UK they used native muslims, not foreigners - cant exclude that possibility here.

Can't exclude it, of course, but in the UK, it's a little story, with large bodies of ex-colonial immigrants now in second, third and fourth generations, current commonwealth immigrants, weenie nonsense like the EU's human rights whinging, and loud-mouthed Imams having had years of free rein to push their message. Again, we focus our efforts on this area to the extent that intel information indicates we should be concerned, not "randomly."

Granted there are still arguments from probability and cost benefit, but the counter arguments about effectiveness of profiling, and the harm to us as a society, are still real as well.

Society is harmed any way you go about it. Security and screening are expensive and have an impact on commerce. Call me an insensitive right-wing utilitarian bastard on the issue, but given that there's a threat, and a cost incurred in responding to that threat, I'd like to see a maximally efficient security response, and people's sense of what's PC be damned.

None of which has ANYTHING to do with the first amendment, BTW.

I've never been terribly interested in this sort of First Amendment argument, anyway.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Is that why your hand was so attracted to the reply button? Trolls (if that's what you think I am) don't exist when they aren't fed.

And let you get the last word?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Well there's been plenty. Would it have been alright to profile white, Christian males after the Oklahoma City attack?

Yeah, I guess two nutbags with known anti-government gun-nut militia leanings acting on their own make "plenty."

If McVeigh had tried to board an airplane with his truck, of if we were talking about screening rental car counters or grocery stores, then you'd have a point.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Or now? Did that threat disappear after 9/11?

BTW, McVeigh was also a decorated veteran.

So with random screenings, maybe we'd stop a McVeigh one time in two hundred?

Great security, there!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Yeah, I guess two nutbags with known anti-government gun-nut militia leanings acting on their own make "plenty."

If McVeigh had tried to board an airplane with his truck, of if we were talking about screening rental car counters or grocery stores, then you'd have a point.

Yeah, cause brown muslims can only hijack planes, and decorated white veteran nutjobs can only blow up govt buildings. While we're at it, why dont we limit the profiling to Saudis and Egyptians, cause you know, no Tunisian or Bangladeshi has ever hijacked a plane in the US either (AFAIK).

[MichaeltheGreat]

You're not normally obtuse.

Where in the concept of "profiling" do you find the concept of "ignore certain groups entirely and scrutinize other groups exclusively?"

Even in all the (often legitmate, but still whinily expressed) whining about racist police departments and racial profiling, I haven't heard anyone seriously try to claim any agency 100% scrutinizes blacks and ignores every other racial group.

McVeigh and his ilk aren't really a very good example for your case, because he was engaging in activities which are still essentially unmonitored. We could have Moslem hoards blowing us up at shopping malls all over the country, but it ain't happening. And airport security screening/no fly lists don't have squat to do with it.

[lord of the mark]

BTW, when you limit the profiling to brown people, how are you going to define "brown" Im assuming non-citizens only right? So do we make a list of "brown" countries? Does Mexico get tossed in? Peru? Brazil - well, there are whites there, but from a cost - ben POV its a much smaller cost than randomly selecting Americans. How about Brits? You cant deny theres a threat from muslim brits? Do we include ALL brits, all brown brits, or brits with muslim names? Ditto for Israelis. Turks? Russians (who include Chechens, etc)? Indians - do we select out the ones with Hindu names?

Basically a disaster. Simpler to just randomly select all non-US citizens, and exclude all US citizens. Of course then you couldnt be so deliciously anti-PC.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
You're not normally obtuse.

Where in the concept of "profiling" do you find the concept of "ignore certain groups entirely and scrutinize other groups exclusively?"

Even in all the (often legitmate, but still whinily expressed) whining about racist police departments and racial profiling, I haven't heard anyone seriously try to claim any agency 100% scrutinizes blacks and ignores every other racial group.

McVeigh and his ilk aren't really a very good example for your case, because he was engaging in activities which are still essentially unmonitored. We could have Moslem hoards blowing us up at shopping malls all over the country, but it ain't happening. And airport security screening/no fly lists don't have squat to do with it.

You seem to be the one implying that randomly selecting this judge was a mistake, so it would seem you think that white American 70 yo combat vets should be subject to zero selections.

AFAIK there is already a much higher rate of selection for foreigners, and from select countries.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
If McVeigh had tried to board an airplane with his truck, of if we were talking about screening rental car counters or grocery stores, then you'd have a point.

Pff. Bend over whitey. Time for your strip search.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
You're not normally obtuse.

Where in the concept of "profiling" do you find the concept of "ignore certain groups entirely and scrutinize other groups exclusively?"

Even in all the (often legitmate, but still whinily expressed) whining about racist police departments and racial profiling, I haven't heard anyone seriously try to claim any agency 100% scrutinizes blacks and ignores every other racial group.

McVeigh and his ilk aren't really a very good example for your case, because he was engaging in activities which are still essentially unmonitored. We could have Moslem hoards blowing us up at shopping malls all over the country, but it ain't happening. And airport security screening/no fly lists don't have squat to do with it.

And we know thats all someone like him will ever engage in? How do we know that?

[lord of the mark]

I mean theres an odd attitude thingie going on here. IIRC, when I visited Israel a couple of decades ago, I was searched at the airport. Not strip searched, IIRC, but patted down, I think. I didnt go whining about my US passport, or what a good Zionist I was, or shouting about my Great grandpa who died in the holocaust. I didnt even go raging about the value of passenger time and CBA. I said, they do what they gotta do, Im glad they do it.

Which, AFAIK, has been the response of most American travelers since 9/11. Except for certain whiners. Which is what I think Kuci was getting at. I doubt that this guy was really concerned about a large scale cost-benefit analysis. Or itching to have more searches of brown foreigners. It was more a general disdain for security and its implications for him - the opposite of the attitude most folks at Ben Gurion airport had, or that most Americans have.