Thread: King endorses ethnic profiling (about time)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld ... -headlines




King endorses ethnic profiling

BY J. JIONI PALMER
Newsday Washington Bureau

August 17, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Declaring that airport screeners shouldn't be hampered by "political correctness," House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King has endorsed requiring people of "Middle Eastern and South Asian" descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion.

Discussing the recent revelation of an alleged plot in England to blow up U.S.-bound airliners, the Seaford Republican said yesterday that, "if the threat is coming from a particular group, I can understand why it would make sense to single them out for further questioning."

King, who has said that all Muslims aren't terrorists but that all recent terrorists are Muslim, favors an ethnic and religious profiling scheme that would include foreign and American-born travelers. "I would give the investigators and screeners a lot of discretion as to where it ends," he said.

Despite King's endorsement of such a process, it is a technique that has been widely dismissed as a legitimate law enforcement tool.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, a childhood friend of King's whom the congressman calls one of the nation's leading counter-terrorism officials, has previously called racial profiling "nuts" and "ineffective," and eliminated the practice when he oversaw the U.S. Customs Service.

The U.S. Justice Department issued a policy three years ago banning racial profiling and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said yesterday that he doesn't favor the practice.

"I think that, you know, taking action against someone solely because of their race and solely because of their religion I think is problematic," Gonzales said.

Bob Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies with the Washington-based Cato Institute, a conservative-libertarian think tank, said racial profiling gradually came into disfavor among law enforcement officials because "they discovered that this kind of profiling was very rarely effective in ferreting out useful information."

He said targeting people based on a range of criteria is a more operative and constitutionally legitimate tool to stop wrongdoers than relying on a blanket profile.

"Simply to profile all Muslims with nothing more than that, I think, would be considered a constitutional problem," Levy said. "Besides, if you are using a profile it doesn't follow that a profile is always effective."

Besides being ineffective, profiling ostracizes a community that could be essential in helping to combat terrorism, said Ahmed Younis of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"In many ways, it is allowing the terrorists what they want, which is the betrayal of our constitutional principles and the disenfranchisement of the communities that we need the most in the war against extremism and terrorism," he said. "American Muslims are on the front lines in the war on terrorism and Mr. King's approach deprives America of her strongest weapon."
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

I think that, you know, taking action against someone solely because of their race and solely because of their religion I think is problematic," Gonzales said.

No-one is taking action AGAINST someone. It's just additional screening. They aren't accusing and arresting them. Now if the terriorists were male, white, Americans of European decent between the ages of 18 and 27.......I have a feeling none of these special interest groups would find this profiling a problem at all. If they were white elderly people and "to be fair" they scanned Latino or Middle-eastern pregnant women......they'd be screaming "why do I have to endure this harrassment when you KNOW the terrorists are old white people?".

Sword cuts both ways.

Queue the Peter King is a paranoid, racist, xenophobe who hates minorities and foreigners isms, ists rants in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....

"if the threat is coming from a particular group, I can understand why it would make sense to single them out for further questioning."

Well, duh!

Racial profiling in airports has nothing to do with racism. Instead, it has everything to do with security. It just so happens that the types of terrorists they're trying to protect against have been Arab muslims. If any American muslims have problems with this, then perhaps they should start speaking out against the terrorists. I'd much rather see that in the news than another Muslim charity being indited on terrorism charges.

iamblueman4,

If any American muslims have problems with this, then perhaps they should start speaking out against the terrorists.

I believe I was watching either CNN or Fox...oh, I know, it was a special with Christiane Amanpour, CNN.

A British Muslim expert ( also Muslim), was interviewed re 'home grown terrorists' after the last terrorist crisis re the plot to blow up multiple planes. He was asked how to stop the anger that is making British muslims...young males, turn radical. He said that it's up to the local Muslim leadership to speak out...to lead. He said that most are too old, disconnected, and not seen as relavent.

If any American muslims have problems with this, then perhaps they should start speaking out against the terrorists.

Or better yet, if they have a problem with this, they should leave the country and go back to where they came from.

Well, as the saying goes right now......Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslims.

I don't believe in treating anyone better than anyone else. HOWEVER, when we're talking about life vs. death or injury vs. safety....I say do whatever you have to do to avoid it.

If the ACLU thinks it's just fine and dandy for people to cross our borders illegally to seek a better life, I think they better say that it's A-okay for authorities to question whoever they want for the purpose of seeking to keep people alive.

If terrorists were mostly mom types....I'd say interrogate all moms.

GO for it. Win the war. Keep us safe and anyone who doesn't get what is at stake can go home and have a tantrum, just don't have it at the airport.

Amen, Legal.

My then, little brother, made the mistake at Miami International Airport, oh gosh, way back when there were all the hijacked planes to Cuba...of saying to his friend, 'wouldn't if be funny if my plane was hijacked?'.

Someone overheard the 'hijacked' and reported him. Suddenly, these 2 high school kids, ~ 16 yrs. old, white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, were held at gunpoint by the security officers, then taken to a room, strip searched and grilled for hours. My mother didn't know, until the person waiting at the other end of their flight, called her that they had NOT made it onto the plane. Took her hours to find them, get an attorney, just in case, and get down there.

They were released. Mom really let the 2 boys know how absolutely stupid their actions had been, given what was happening right then.

No, no tantrums at the airport! By anyone. They don't play, and for my safety, I don't want them to.

OMG Curious! That must have been scarey! Ya.....I keep telling my kids that's there's a filter between what we think and what we say.....use it. Then there's another between what we say and do.

I'll never forget when some elderly man...after waiting for a long time to return something at Wal-Mart...responded to the clerk something to the effect...."no, I got a bomb in there" being sarcastic.....and they hauled him away! Terroristic threat! It's not a joke. Is that an American form of humor or something? Coz I know I do it. Makes me laugh so I won't cry.