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59% Favor Racial, Ethnic Profiling For Airline Security [Title edited]

Just because a majority of people want it doesn't mean we should do it. I didn't see Navy running around touting we should have national health care because a majority of Americans wanted it at the time. Its fickle pointless politics to base it off of nothing but what the majority says, and even more hacky to trumpet it only when the majority wants something you want. Its a poor tactic when people did it for health care, its a poor tactic for now. In both cases people are voting in part for something they WANT....in one case, to be checked less at airports and in the other part to have free health care.

Additionally, what is being suggested in that statement....that race/ethnicity should be included in a broader scope of profiling....is COMPLETELY different than what many on here pushing it were suggesting which ranged from checking EVERY person that "looked muslim", focusing primarily on people that "looked Muslim", giving full searchs including cavity searches to everyone that "looked muslim", to one poster gleefully thinking of the notion of just electrocuting any muslim that came through the line.
 
Z3n said:
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
- Benjamin Franklin
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I love any hyper partisan that thinks this kind of notion is reserved for either side.

Liberals do it too. Please, give up your freedom of choice and ability to worry about your own body for the security of knowing that father government will take care of you if you're sick.

:roll:


It goes both ways, both sides do it, just in different ways.
 
Zyphlin said:
I love any hyper partisan that thinks this kind of notion is reserved for either side.

Liberals do it too. Please, give up your freedom of choice and ability to worry about your own body for the security of knowing that father government will take care of you if you're sick.

:roll:


It goes both ways, both sides do it, just in different ways.
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i didnt say it,ben franklin did! :p

never said it was reserved for either side...
 
Z3n said:
i didnt say it,ben franklin did! :p

never said it was reserved for either side...
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Touche! Though actually Franklin didn't.The Ben Franklin quote is one of the most tired cliche's of all time in politics. Its also one of the most oft wrongly quoted ones. It is not a little liberty for a little security, but essential liberty for temporary security, which completely changes the inflection and meaning of the quote and makes it a much harder sell for using it to bludgeon over the heads of republicans.

And it wasn't that you didn't say it was reserved for either side. It was that you took the oppertunity to use it to simply bash on conservatives full outwithout taking any moment to stop and realize its an obvious partisan attack job as its not just something conservatives, but politicians as a whole, do
 
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Zyphlin said:
No, but you spared no time to mention in any way the left and simply took it as an oppertunity to take hyper partisan pot shots at the right for something that is not exclusive to them but is the realm of all politics. The Ben Franklin quote is one of the most tired cliche's of all time in politics. Its also one of the most oft wrongly quoted ones. It is not a little liberty for a little security, but essential liberty for temporary security, which completely changes the inflection and meaning of the quote and makes it a much harder sell for using it to bludgeon over the heads of republicans.
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does it not apply to racial profiling? :2wave:
 
All I can say is this is a sad day for an America built on freedom and liberty for all.
 
Z3n said:
does it not apply to racial profiling? :2wave:
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Questionable honestly....

The constitutionality of race as part of a broader profile is an oft debate constitutional matter that is not definitive nor clear cut. I would say personally that broadscale enhanced searching of EVERYONE that happens to LOOK to be of a specific ethnic heritage is a violation of the 4th and 14th; however using it as simply one facet of a much larger profile that needs numerous criteria to hit before taking action would be more questionable for me.

So in regards to the sacrifice of ESSENTIAL liberty, that would be questionable to me on this count.

Additionally, the entire premise of Ben's quote is a bit questionable. Our entire system of civil law is based off the notion of people sacrificing their liberties for exchange for temporary security...temporary in the notion that none of it can be garaunteed. I always in part question peoples use of Ben's quote in the current day, when there are dozens upon dozens of examples in our code of law in which things that COULD be argued as being part of that essential liberty....or, in the case of how most liberals who tend to use it since it proliferated around the internet following the Patriot Act, just "liberty"....have been taken away in exchange for security, by both liberals and conservative,s but you neve hear liberlas screaming about it unless it happened to be placed in there by a conservative.
 
Re: Poll on profiling

HILLBILLY said:
So tell me disneydude, what would be your plan, if any, to protect the citizens? I am curious for the lib answer.
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He doesn't have one..His only answer is Kumbya.......
 
How about behavioral profiling, since its been proven to work.
 
One of the strategies of the Islamic terrorists is to undermine our freedom. The more paranoid we become the more likely we are to trade our freedom for safety's sake.

I care less about my safety than I do my personal freedom.

We are damned if we do and damned if we don't.

If this were a war according to our constitution instead of the unconstitutional war power's act it would be a different story. It's a faux war.:(
 
To be frank, the terrorists seem like they've taken Reagan's cold war strategy and improved upon it. Rather than having to spend a ton to force the enemy to spend a ton until they go bankrupt, the terrorists are barely having to spend much of anything and yet are causing the U.S. to go deeper and deeper into debt as more and more big government, big spending people in government here just want to continue to throw cash at the problem.
 
Whoever made the comment about body cavity searches is right - this sort of profiling won't help in the security lines because unless you go to EXTREME measures, the enemy will always figure out a way around it.

We can get the most "bang for the buck" by actually using the no-fly lists and other security measures we've already come up with. It seems like we've got the tools to identify threats - it's just that people aren't using the info as they should.
 
Zyphlin said:
To be frank, the terrorists seem like they've taken Reagan's cold war strategy and improved upon it. Rather than having to spend a ton to force the enemy to spend a ton until they go bankrupt, the terrorists are barely having to spend much of anything and yet are causing the U.S. to go deeper and deeper into debt as more and more big government, big spending people in government here just want to continue to throw cash at the problem.
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Oh my god, I agree with you.:shock:
 
Case in point from Today's News!!

The unidentified male passenger was apparently placed on a do-not-board list submitted to the TSA and CDC on January 8, 2010.
Investigators are trying to determine how the noticeably ill man made it through security checkpoints and onto the flight.
Sick Passenger On "Do Not Board" List Flies From Philly To San Francisco - cbs3.com

If we want to increase security let's start by reading the damn no-fly list!!! - follow-through is much more of a problem than identifying threats.
 
I don't think assessing the risk of passengers on a plane is much different than insurance companies assessing the risk of car accidents or how likely you are to die based on your race, health, age, etc.
 
When flying back from Boston once, my ticket was red flagged and I was pulled aside at security and had to have every inch of my carry-on baggage rubbed down for residue, and I was forced into a machine that gave me a big ole full body blow job. The whole ordeal took about 20-30 minutes.

Why? Because my itinerary changed at the last minute. Not by my doing, mind you (the airline switched my plane), but my itinerary had a last minute change. That sends out a red flag. That is also profiling. And, it can be a very effective tool. Not in my case, obviously, but I can see why it is their SOP and I don't have an issue with it.
 
rivrrat said:
When flying back from Boston once, my ticket was red flagged and I was pulled aside at security and had to have every inch of my carry-on baggage rubbed down for residue, and I was forced into a machine that gave me a big ole full body blow job. The whole ordeal took about 20-30 minutes.

Why? Because my itinerary changed at the last minute. Not by my doing, mind you (the airline switched my plane), but my itinerary had a last minute change. That sends out a red flag. That is also profiling. And, it can be a very effective tool. Not in my case, obviously, but I can see why it is their SOP and I don't have an issue with it.
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That kind of profiling is accepted and good, I absolutely agree. The OP is about 59% of Americans saying racial profiling would be acceptable.

Again this is a sad day for America, personal liberty and freedom for all.
 
Says the gentleman that is for:

Expanding Government Size
Expanding Government Power
Expanding Government Spending
Expanding Government involvement into private citizens lives
Expanding Government degredation of the constitution

You've yet, and never will, been able to show how I'm so dastardly liberal other than the fact I disagree with you that we need to full out racially profile people.

:roll:
 
Re: Poll on profiling

CaptainCourtesy said:
Just remember when you said this, NP:



Remember, you can't have it both ways. When one poll supports your position, and another does not, either they are both valid, or the both are not.

As to the OP. I think profiling is a poor word... or a word that has gotten a lot of negativity to surround it. If during the matter of a few years, several terrorist attacks on airplanes are performed by blonde-headed men, it makes sense to be more suspicious of blonde-headed men on airplanes. That does not mean that all blonde-headed men should not be allowed to fly... or should be harassed. But it stands to reason to be more aware when you see a blonde-headed man going on an airplane. This is not stereotyping. It is using past evidence to assist in making assessments.
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I think that's a bit of an overkill. No one is saying that all Arabs or all Scandinavian or all Asians should be blocked or suspected. It's about trends and subtle details that become characteristic of those who commit terrorist acts.
 
Zyphlin said:
Says the gentleman that is for:

Expanding Government Size
Expanding Government Power
Expanding Government Spending
Expanding Government involvement into private citizens lives
Expanding Government degredation of the constitution

You've yet, and never will, been able to show how I'm so dastardly liberal other than the fact I disagree with you that we need to full out racially profile people.

:roll:
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I'm not sure whom you speak of, but I'll respond to the last sentence. There is nothing wrong with profiling, except that the guilty and PC object the most. For all I know I'm being profiled at the airport and don't even know it. Will there be some false alarms, yes, but the stereotype of the white grandmother being strip searched while 100 arabs fly through security has got to end. As yet not a single white grand mother has committed a serious crime onboard an aircraft but yet the stereotype exists. Like it or not stereotype have truth to them.
 
American said:
I think that's a bit of an overkill. No one is saying that all Arabs or all Scandinavian or all Asians should be blocked or suspected. It's about trends and subtle details that become characteristic of those who commit terrorist acts.
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Actually, many have suggested it on this vary forum. If you must I'll go find the recent quotes. Some suggested full search, including cavity searches, for any muslims flying. Others jokingly suggested we may as well just electricute all muslims as they come through.

American said:
I'm not sure whom you speak of, but I'll respond to the last sentence. There is nothing wrong with profiling, except that the guilty and PC object the most. For all I know I'm being profiled at the airport and don't even know it.
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You likely are. PROFILING, as a larger process that takes into account mutliple factors and takes into account the usefulness of said factors based on how potentially common they are compared to the chance that they're a telling sign, is not generally a bad thing. Its when you make ethnicity/race a major, or your primary, means of deciding your profile.

Go check for a thread I made about profiling in the polls section recently, you'll find my view. Race or ethnicity, as a small factor in a much BROADER profile isn't a bad thing in this case in my mind due to reality. You can't make it a BIG factor due to the pit falls of full out ethnic profiling and the tendnacy for focusing heavily on something causing you to focus less on other issues. However, this is a far cry from the over the top full out religious/ethnic profiling and immediete assumed suspision that some have wanted simply for someone looking "arab", "muslim", or as right coined the phrase "terroristy".

Additionally those in favor of broadscale racial profiling generally go too far with their argument which is why they tend to get push back. It is FAR from a fail proof method, like they try to act. They bring it up massively after the most recent attack, however ethnic profiling wouldn't have caught this guy unless you're suggesting to stop everyone BUT white people. Others point out that spending the money to potentially train MORE people in profiling, as some have suggested, would be a waste of money because we are failing to properly use the procedures we have NOW and so adding another procedure isn't practical nor worth while unless your desire is more just to ostracize muslims and make it easier for you to travel, making it obvious its less about saftey and more about your convienence.
 
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