Should the USA use racial profiling for safety?

[Rommelvon]

should the US use racial profiling for safety reasons in this age of terrorism?

[WarSteed]

I'd hate to say it, but i would say yes. By no means do i advocate violating their rights, but if you have muslim extremists looking to suicide bomb you, then it only makes sense to look at the muslim population. Just be careful about violating their rights.

i'd feel uncomfortable if they profiled me for being Korean (half) if Kim Jung-il went all crazy, but i'd understand.

[southernshooter]

Not just yes, But Hell Yes

[Jay]

When it comes to crime/.criminals, profiling should be unlimited. If 80% of given crimes in a given area are committed by little green people with purple feet, then little green people with purple feet need to be looked at VERY closely...... to the point of "who are you and what are you doing here?"

just my 2 cents.......

[AL MOUNT]

"But....but....but, we might hurt their feelings" .......

Said the stupid Democrats....

[armedandsafe]

I was profiled many, many times, growing up in SoNevada.

"What do you think you are doing out on the streets. Get home and get in your house, NOW!"

(Underage, out after midnight, caught next to a house with fruit trees in the back yard. )

Pops

[LurpyGeek]

I think we shouldn't focus on racial profiling, but profiling of ALL aspects of an individual's life.

[berto64]

YES!!

And we otta start with Liberal Damnocrats!

[Pat Hurley]

Originally Posted by LurpyGeek

I think we shouldn't focus on racial profiling, but profiling of ALL aspects of an individual's life.

Scenario: A commercial aircraft is boarding just three passengers. One is an 85 year old, black American-born female with a walker, humming "Swannee River." The second passenger is a 21 year old turbin wearing Saudi Arbian male national, here on a student visa. He is carrying a copy of the Koran and mumbling "Allah Akbar" over and over again. The third passenger is a fifteen year old white male, American born high schooler with baggy pants, an Ipod, and the latest issue of Surfer magazine in hand.

Which passenger deserves special scrutiny? Which one - using common sense guided by experience - presents the greatest probability of a security threat? What would the odd makers in Vegas say the odds were of passenger one (grandma) carrying an explosive device? What odds would they give that passenger two would? How about passenger three? Now, to all of the answers that you have given to the questions that I've just posed, you must ask yourself WHY? If you're logical, and honest, you'll agree that profiling is wise, will save lives, and reduces the chances for a calamity.

We're so damn eager not to "offend", or hurt anyones feelings, or put two and two together and come up with four (young male + middle easterner = high probability of trouble) that we're blind to the danger at the end of our noses, and endangering the lives of innocent millions in the process.

F'em all, I say. America is worth saving. Homocidal Islamofacists are not.

[Marlin]

A - M E N !!!!!

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by armedandsafe

(Underage, out after midnight, caught next to a house with fruit trees in the back yard. )

Pops

Pops, was that before or after the orchard farmer loaded your backside with rock salt from his shotgun?

Seriously, profiling has been used for years by police agencies, both local and federal, and should continue to be used. It is a tool that is far too valuable and accurate simply to be discarded out of some half-assed desire to be "politically correct." My only concern with the use of such techniques is they can, at times, be carried much too far, and thus used not as a legitimate tool to control crime and terrorism, but as a means of harrassment. So long as we guard carefully against that sort of misuse, profiling is well within the bounds of responsible police work.

[Xracer]

Originally Posted by Pistolenschutze

Seriously, profiling has been used for years by police agencies, both local and federal, and should continue to be used.

.....and then we rounded up thousands of people of Japanese ancestry, many of them American citizens, and shipped them off to concentration camps.

And wasn't that a proud day in American history!

[rosierita]

i voted for the fruitcakes....

[358 winchester]

I went along with rosierita on this one

[22WRF]

Racial profiling for Safety works for me

[stetson]

Our goverment should use every tool it has at it's disposal to keep our country safe.I don't care if peoples feelings are hurt!

[Xracer]

Well then.....there's the small matter of Constitution of the United States which guarantees equal protection under the law....

Amendment 14: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Or maybe the Constitution just doesn't count any more.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".....Benjamin Franklin

[armedandsafe]

Pops, was that before or after the orchard farmer loaded your backside with rock salt from his shotgun?

I'm not going to answer that on grounds that it might embarass the h**l out of me.

I will say that when they picked the shrapnel out of me after my last trip out of Hungary, they took the time to get the shotgun pellet out of the back of my neck. It had been irritated by my shirt collar for about 7 years (I was just barely 21 by then. )

Pops

[Bruce FLinch]

Let's profile! True the Govt screwed up the Japenese Internment thing, but that was in an age where info on a person was not easily obtainable.

We should profile people of interest. The ones who are law-abiding will have to understand & accept it. Most of the people of interest are not US citizens, our security is more important than their right to privacy.

[Xracer]

Originally Posted by Bruce FLinch

Let's profile! We should profile people of interest. The ones who are law-abiding will have to understand & accept it.

And those people would be Muslims, won't they? How does that square with the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Current estimates are that there are 6 to 8 million Muslims currently in the U.S. (possibly higher due to the recent influx of Somali and S.E. Asian refugees)......should we declare 6 to 8 million people "persons of interest" and deprive them their rights under the 1st and 4th Amendments of the Constitution?

For those of you with short memories (or lack of knowledge of history).....do the names of Judith Coplon, David Greenglass, Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, Joseph Bernstein, Sonia & Bela Gold, and Solomon Adler ring a bell? They should. They were all American Jews, and all were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union in the 1950's.

Should we have then declared that American Jews were disloyal and were "persons of interest"?

Gee.....maybe we could've made them wear gold "Stars of David" on their sleeves......wouldn't that've been fun?

Sorry for the rant......but I've seen the world spin for quite some time and have seen how far these things can go. I take the whole Constitution (not just the 2nd Amendment) very seriously......and have seen the steady erosion of our Constitutional rights......and that doesn't make me a happy camper.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".....Benjamin Franklin

[WarSteed]

I see your argument Xracer, but i believe the argument is about watching people more closely, not violating their rights. Last i heard it wasn't a crime to be watching someone. If they start engaging in suspicious activity then yes, get more information on them that isn't readily available. But i see no problem with collecting publicly available information on a group of people who are more likely to commit terrorist acts against us.

Now if i start seeing police gathering up Muslims to throw in internmint camps then yes, i think we'd have a serious problem.

[Pat Hurley]

Originally Posted by Xracer

And those people would be Muslims, won't they? How does that square with the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Current estimates are that there are 6 to 8 million Muslims currently in the U.S. (possibly higher due to the recent influx of Somali and S.E. Asian refugees)......should we declare 6 to 8 million people "persons of interest" and deprive them their rights under the 1st and 4th Amendments of the Constitution?

For those of you with short memories (or lack of knowledge of history).....do the names of Judith Coplon, David Greenglass, Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, Joseph Bernstein, Sonia & Bela Gold, and Solomon Adler ring a bell? They should. They were all American Jews, and all were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union in the 1950's.

Should we have then declared that American Jews were disloyal and were "persons of interest"?

Gee.....maybe we could've made them wear gold "Stars of David" on their sleeves......wouldn't that've been fun?

Sorry for the rant......but I've seen the world spin for quite some time and have seen how far these things can go. I take the whole Constitution (not just the 2nd Amendment) very seriously......and have seen the steady erosion of our Constitutional rights......and that doesn't make me a happy camper.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".....Benjamin Franklin

With all due respect X, that is a specious arguement. World Jewry did not declare Jihad on America in the 1950's... but a frighteningly large percentage of world Muslims have. It's quite a long cab ride from spying for a foreign power and detonating a nuclear device in Times Square, blowing commercial planes up over the Atlantic, or cutting off the heads of our citizens because they don't share a glassy-eyed devotion to Muhammad.

No one is suggesting a suspension of Constitutional rights are in order. Rather, a common sense, hightened security alert to those people who hail from lands breeding terrorists and, even then, narrowly focused to the gender and age of those most prone to commit these heinous acts of terrorism.

Reasonable, prudent, and rational.

These are extraordinary times, and extraordinary measures are called for to prevent another 9/11, or worse, from happening again. I could give a damn about appeasing leftist race baiters who caterwaul about profiling that will assuredly save the lives of innocents.

Ask the families of the victims of 9/11 whether profiling the airline passengers in Boston and New York would have been a good idea that fateful day.

Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out.

[Bruce FLinch]

I repeat, if they are not a U.S. citizen, they do not have the same rights. Their lives should be open to examination. I don't care if they're Muslims, or Jews or pedophiles.

If we travel to a foreign country, are we subject to the same rights & privelidges as a citizen of that country? I doubt it.

[obxned]

What the politically correct folks call 'racial profiling' is simply using the probable description of the suspects. If you are looking for a rapist, you aren't going to waste much time checking nuns and infants.

[Thunderhawk88]

was that before or after the orchard farmer loaded your backside with rock salt from his shotgun?

OMG...that brought back a painful memory.........literally!