Friday, December 17, 2010

Airport Profiling?

Some of the silliest chatter comes from Washington. (Surprised?)

...Israeli profiling targets more than Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims, though they may receive the closest scrutiny. The most widely celebrated example was the interception in 1986 of Anne-Marie Murphy, 32, who was six months pregnant when she attempted to board an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv, unaware that her fiance had placed a bomb in her bag.

Experts say the United States is unlikely to adopt the Israeli model. It "includes ethnical and national profiling, " said Ron, the former Israeli airport security director. "Being a Palestinian in Israel is not an advantage, obviously. In the U.S., any ethnical or national profiling is illegal or unacceptable for the American public."

Umnnnhhh.....Mr. Ron, you are dead wrong. Profiling is perfectly acceptable for national security and for preserving American lives. You are a twit.

Not all "experts" agree with Ron.

"I would like to see a lot more profiling," said the Israeli-born Yossi Sheffi, who is an expert on risk analysis and directs the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Transportation and Logistics.

"If you're tall and dark and going to Yemen and your name is bin Laden, you should be searched more than an old grandmother from Kansas City with a walker," he said.

Sheffi demonstrates that one can use basic logic. Too bad about Mr. Ron's problem.


HT: Jo

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Profiling is perfectly acceptable for national security and for preserving American lives."


Sounds like you want to bring back Plessy v. Ferguson!

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

Seriously? Plessy (separate but Equal) has what to do with profiling? Really....that is quite a stretch.

Anonymous said...

In Plessy, southern states were allowed to "profile" blacks by making the claim that legally they could be in a theatre, train, bus stop, etc. but socially were not given the same treatment as whites because "one cannot legislate how one feels about someone." Discrimination resulted from this thought process--if I think they are inferior, I will act that they are inferior. Need I remind you that southern states violated the "promise" of Plessy--separate but equal. Just conduct a google search, and one will witness the clear cut violations.

Similarly, if the United States embraces Israeli style profiling at our airports, the same mentality of Plessy will rear its ugly head.

Haven't we as a country learned from our past prejudice???

Apparently, not, as Dad29 had advocated in a previous post that school districts ought not hire Muslims because they may request to have an unpaid leave of absence to go on a pilgrimage, and our Christian sensibilities are "offended".

Dad29 said...

No, dumbass, the CONTRACT was 'offended.'

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

"Haven't we as a country learned from our past prejudice???"

So we should throw any common sense efforts to keep ourselves safe out the window, right? Open our borders to all comers with no limits. Give up our rights to be safe in our persons and papers and submit to a government invasion OF OUR PANTS! because we had past prejudices?

Amazing how stupid the "intellectual elite" are.

And, oh yes....sanctity of the contract? I agree with Dad. Would our "anonymous" foil be willing to break a contract to allow a Christian to take a sabbatical to go on a mission to convert the "unsaved"?

Beer, Bicycles and the VRWC said...

And like I said....using Plessy is an incredible stretch.

Anonymous said...

The constitution is NOT a suicide pact.

David

Anonymous said...

Deekaman--Surprise, surprise, you side with Dad.

I actually agreed that the school district was CORRECT in asserting the language of the contract. I vehemently oppose, however, Dad29's insistence that a school district be willing to engage in discrimination against Muslim employees. NOT in the Christian spirit, eh?


"Would our "anonymous" foil be willing to break a contract to allow a Christian to take a sabbatical to go on a mission to convert the "unsaved"?"

If a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. who is a teacher wants to go on an unpaid sabbatical during the school year, and it is the contract language, what's the problem? If it is NOT part of the contract language, they must wait until they have time off on their own.


Try to provide a counterargument in that Plessy is a stretch. That is EXACTLY what white southern supremacists claimed--"sure, we'll make things separate and equal". Well, well, look what occurred.
The United States has a history of discrimination, from Native Americans to blacks to women to Japanese.

NO! to profiling.

Please tell me where specifically in the Constitution that it states profiling is "perfectly acceptable". I think that is taking a "loose" interpretation of the Constitution, n'est pas?