Article on Political Correctness and profiling

[OneGuy67]

I wanted to share this article with the members of the forum. It is the lead editorial in Police magazine (www.policemag.com), a law enforcement publication. Obviously, not a wide swath mainstream, social wide publication like Time or Newsweek and is geared towards law enforcement, but I thought this guy hits the point right on the head and it should be shared.




Death by Political Correctness

Do we have the national will to prevent terrorism, even if it requires us to profile?

by David Griffith -
A lot has changed since 9/11. But one thing remains the same: There are a lot of bad people out there who want to make us bleed. And as discussed in this issue of Police, the United States is still a very soft and juicy target.

One of the primary reasons that we are still sitting ducks is political correctness. We are afraid to take the steps that would be necessary to prevent future attacks because we are terrified of being labeled Islamophobic or, God forbid, racist.

In contemporary American society, one of the worst things you can call someone is "racist." It's right up there with "child rapist."

No one wanted to be fitted with that scarlet "R." The fear of being labeled racist prevents many Americans from asking why the borders can't be secured, it prevents us from asking why we can't keep a tighter watch on what's going on in the local mosque, and it prevents us from profiling people who may be hostile.

Now I will be the first to say that probably 95 percent of foreign Muslims in our country have no desire to commit acts of violence. But I'd sleep a lot better at night if we had the political will to check up on that other five percent, even if it meant inconveniencing some folks who are totally benign.

I know, I'd feel different if I was one of the innocent folks who was inconvenienced. And that's true. But let me be clear on something here, I'm not talking about rounding up folks and shipping them off to a new Manzanar. I'm talking about a little extra scrutiny.

Here's an example of the kind of thing that bothers me. Last month I was in the main concourse of a major airport hub. There I observed a young (maybe 25 to 30 years old) Pakistani man do something a little weird. He took out a small point-and-shoot digital camera and snapped a shot of a restaurant/bar. There was no one posing for a holiday snap in front of the bar. He just took a shot of the bar, then he pocketed the camera, and moved on.

Now I can think of several innocent reasons why a Pakistani guy might snap a picture of an American airport bar. Maybe he just bought the camera and wanted to try it out. Maybe he worked in the restaurant business and he wanted to steal some of the décor for his joint. Maybe he wanted to show people back home what an American airport bar looks like.
But I can also think of some really sinister reasons he might have snapped that photo. And I can envision it being sent home via e-mail to some guys who might be calculating blast radius and kill zones.

Either way, he moved on before I could bring his presence to the attention of a TSA agent. And even if I had mentioned it to TSA or even the police, what could they have done? Nothing. They would have looked at me like I was racist or paranoid.

But as a college professor told me long ago, "Paranoia may be just a higher state of enlightenment." And this guy's behavior was just odd enough to get my Spidey senses tingling. And is it really racist to note someone's ethnicity when people of that ethnicity are actually trying to kill you?

Honestly, this guy's behavior would have been odd if he was a red-headed Irish dude. So somebody should have asked him what he was doing.
We need to start asking questions in this country. We need to know the answers to things like: Why is that guy taking photos of the airport restaurant? Why is that adult man walking into the local elementary school without showing some kind of ID and demonstrating a reason to be there? Who is screening the backgrounds of the taxi and limo drivers who drive right up to the entrance of the local airport? Did anybody investigate the folks who service the planes at the local airport?

We need to start asking these questions, even at the risk of being thought racist. And political correctness be damned. That's the only way we are really going to make this country safer.

At the recent POLICE-TREXPO East, one of the highlights was a panel discussion about crime on the U.S.-Mexico border that featured sheriffs and other law enforcement officers who deal with the chaos every day. At the end of the session, the panel took questions from the audience. When asked, "Why don't we just build a wall down there?" one of the sheriffs replied, "We don't want to offend anybody."

Trying not to offend anybody is a good life philosophy for an individual. But it can't be the national security policy for a great nation. If it is, it might as well be our epitaph.

[Irving]

Thanks for passing this along.

[TFOGGER]

Perhaps we need airport security a bit more like the Israelis... the young Pakistani man would have been asked some pointed questions...

[TS12000]

A red headed irishman would be suspicious if taking a photo of a bar? I doubt it...



In all seriousness though this article is on point and I think we have almost reached a point of no return as far as: "You aren't allowed to offend anyone, anywhere, ever, no matter the cost, no matter how good you're intentions are". I would rather raise the alarm a million times and be labeled a racist than not point something funky out and have it be the time something really horrible happened.

[68Charger]

A red headed irishman would be suspicious if taking a photo of a bar? I doubt it...

From outside it?

good article... you can be sure that the other side is using PC to their advantage, even trying to advance it...

[Byte Stryke]

A red headed irishman would be suspicious if taking a photo of a bar? I doubt it...



In all seriousness though this article is on point and I think we have almost reached a point of no return as far as: "You aren't allowed to offend anyone, anywhere, ever, no matter the cost, no matter how good you're intentions are". I would rather raise the alarm a million times and be labeled a racist than not point something funky out and have it be the time something really horrible happened.

Agree... a Red-headed Irishman taking a foto from outside of a pub with none of his Mates about is mighty peculiar t' say the least!


OneGuy, I Say this all of the time.
Just because everyone says you're paranoid doesn't mean that there's not someone out there trying to get ya!


I think we should start using the lib-tard arguments against them.

"well if you have nothing to hide then you won't mind us tracking your movements and monitoring your explosives purchases."

[theGinsue]

Thank you for sharing that article. I took that exact same position at work about a month or so back.

While all of my co-workers claim to be conservative and pro-security, etc. every one of them either made comments or at least gave me looks to the point of being a racist, paranoid, an isolationist, etc. All of us have served and we currently work in a defense dept. facility and the .mil is out customer.

Until someone is in THEIR face making THEM a victim they won'y see the need to scrutinize specific demographics that have proven to count amongst their numbers the highest degree of terrorists or criminals.

Right after 9/11 our government was TELLING us to report anything that seemed suspicious; to remain ever vigilant. Today, if we were to do just that, our government and populace alike would brand US as potential risks.

I'll continue to say that somewhere in t he last 10 years our nation has completely turned itself around backwards. What was once RIGHT is now WRONG and what was WRONG is now RIGHT. What was illegal is now LEGAL but what was LEGAL is now ILLEGAL. I don't know what happened, but I'm not comfortable with the world standing on it's head.

[StagLefty]

Well said Ginsue !

[Seamonkey]

+1

[Hoosier]

In contemporary American society, one of the worst things you can call someone is "racist." It's right up there with "child rapist."

Fucking bullshit! A child rapist necessarily hurt a child who's unable to defend itself. A racist believes a concept. There is no way those are equatable. GFTO

probably 95 percent of foreign Muslims in our country have no desire to commit acts of violence...if we had the political will to check up on that other five percent

Yes, this idea is completely rational. We'll check up on the 5% of Muslims in the US that have a desire to commit acts of violence... there are 2.8M Muslims living in America, so if we know exactly which 5% are out to do us harm, we only need to keep tabs on 140,000 of them. Considering we've plowed billions into privatized national security, it should be doable. Small problem with this is those 140k don't really mention that fact, so it's a bit difficult to spot them. That's ok though, because of that 140k, only what, a dozen or less have tried to do anything?

...even if it meant inconveniencing some folks who are totally benign. I know, I'd feel different if I was one of the innocent folks who was inconvenienced. And that's true.

An admission that you'd feel differently in somebody else shoes. Reason it away as, "Oh, it's only some inconvience that I won't feel, so it's OK to take away someone else rights -- It's not like we're throwing them in jail!"

Here's an example of the kind of thing that bothers me. Last month I was in the main concourse of a major airport hub. There I observed a young (maybe 25 to 30 years old) Pakistani man do something a little weird. He took out a small point-and-shoot digital camera and snapped a shot of a restaurant/bar. There was no one posing for a holiday snap in front of the bar. He just took a shot of the bar, then he pocketed the camera, and moved on.

How the fuck is this weird? I snap pictures of random shit all the time. The whole "Terrorists are taking pictures of targets" hasn't be proved, and doesn't mean we give up our rights to take photos. The rent-a-cops who try to prevent people from taking pictures from public property need to be schooled in American law. Probably why they're mall jockeys to start with. The fact that people associate taking pictures of things as terrorist related is what's weird.

Why is that adult man walking into the local elementary school without showing some kind of ID and demonstrating a reason to be there? Did anybody investigate the folks who service the planes at the local airport?

These two are legit security questions that aren't being answered because we're too concerned with security theatre, in worrying about things which pose no threat like someone taking pictures. What about scanning air-freight cargo that goes onto passenger aircraft?

We need to start asking these questions, even at the risk of being thought racist. And political correctness be damned. That's the only way we are really going to make this country safer.

There's no correlation to racism and security. If you are targeting someone because of their race, you're doing security wrong. Here, read what an actual security expert has to say on the subject:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...profiling.html

H.