Name some acceptable forms of discrimination.

[Darth Wong]

Gee, who below is more likely to be a terrorist? (wrings hands) Who who who?

So if a bunch of pictures of darker-skinned Jews are shoved in front of you, you figure they should all be treated as terrorists?

[brianeyci]

Yes. IF ALL OTHER FACTORS ARE EQUAL, YOU SEARCH THE MUSLIM

There is where the flaw of your entire approach comes. You cannot have an effective database of traits and "red flags" officially to rely solely on. The best you can do is have risk factors and have the officers make the decisions themselves based on their judgment. What part of discretion do you not understand? All other factors are not equal, ever. What about Muslim businessman compared to American white trash mom? What about Muslim mom versus American baggy pant teenager? Oh yeah, forgot about the American Taliban didn't you.

Do you really think that the difference is insignificant to them?

Burden of proof is on you to show the cost is significant to them. You have yet to make the claim. I put it in economic terms for you, 100 versus 110 dollars being insiginficant. Even a five time increase in a cell phone is insignificant. You handwave away that objection by saying lowering the terrorist funding is the ultimate goal. No, it is not. Stopping suicide attacks is the goal. By the way, evidence has already been posted of tens of thousands of people attending extremist conferences who are non-Muslim, and you're willfully ignoring it.

You seem to be adopting position 2, outlined above, in which case more power to you. People like you have, in reality, had their way with airport security in the US, so far.

And where are the additional suicide bombings occuring as a result of lax airport security? Face it, you've got nothing. Just a feeling that if you focus on Muslims they'll be less suicide bombings. Let's not forget that you're suggesting taking away civil liberties and having a policy which would encourage racism among security guards, not exactly the most intellectual people. Or did you forget that, that a guard could from then on search Muslims whenever he wanted and point to your now overriding policy, even in cases when all other factors are not equal? Your "policy" would create a clusterfuck of Muslim abuse and all in the name of "clarity" and "focus."

If a suicide attack happens as a result of 1. too lax background checks into a Muslim extremist hired at an airport (let's not forget the first point was hiring Muslim airport guards what a joke) or 2. a Muslim man getting on an airplane because of some insane "balance" policy where a white American mom was searched instead of the Muslim man who was suspicious and the guy turning out to be a terrorist, then I'll change my mind on the issue. For now I'm going to assume security guards know how to do their job because, you know, they have fucking training and they can tell when to search a suspicious Muslim man and when to let the guy go. You just made that fucking shit up: any decent security guard knows how to tell who's dangerous and who's not and doesn't need a "policy" to search more Muslims. Balance my ass.

This "liberals have had their way with airport security" is pretty fucking silly. I don't know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. It's obviously intended as an insult, but where are the suicide bombings on American or Western soil eh? Do you think that more discerning airport security would've stopped the Iraqi doctors in the UK? Give me a break.

[Master of Ossus]

Gee, who below is more likely to be a terrorist? (wrings hands) Who who who?

So if a bunch of pictures of darker-skinned Jews are shoved in front of you, you figure they should all be treated as terrorists?

I see. You consider searching people in an airport to be the same as treating them as terrorists.

Tons of people getting the terrorist treatment in the US, then, every day. Call the ACLU.

[brianeyci]

I love how the fuckwits in this thread are painting MoO as a radical racist shitbag, while completely ignoring what he is actually saying. Everybody is just SO conerned with the feelgood 'let's be fair to everyone!' nursery rhyme, that they've completely ignored the OP in general, and MoO specifically.

I don't think MoO is a racist shitbag. If I did I'd call him a racist shitbag, this being SDN.

How about some evidence of this "balance" policy where a white American mom gets searched over a suspicious Muslim guy boarding an airplane, all because corporate leaders are afraid of Muslim backlash? Or was that just some hypothetical situation MoO made up to show some fairy tale balance policy letting terrorists get away? Kinnison mentioned the general, but that's got nothing to do with focus on Muslims and he didn't cite shit.

[Lord Poe]

So if a bunch of pictures of darker-skinned Jews are shoved in front of you, you figure they should all be treated as terrorists?

Oh yes, that was my entire point....

[Master of Ossus]

There is where the flaw of your entire approach comes. You cannot have an effective database of traits and "red flags" officially to rely solely on.

Nor am I trying to.

The best you can do is have risk factors and have the officers make the decisions themselves based on their judgment. What part of discretion do you not understand?

Thank you, this is precisely my position.

All other factors are not equal, ever. What about Muslim businessman compared to American white trash mom? What about Muslim mom versus American baggy pant teenager? Oh yeah, forgot about the American Taliban didn't you.

Hey, I was responding to your hypothetical, wasn't I?

And I didn't forget about John Walker Lindh, I just don't see 74 others like him, nor 12 black suicide bombers, 4 East Asian suicide bombers, a native American suicide bomber, and 2 biracial or multiracial suicide bombers for every 2 Arab suicide bombers I see. I also don't see a female suicide bomber for every male suicide bomber. Making slight allowances for differences in air-travel frequency between the various races in the US, and for international travelers, that's what we would expect to see if the "treat everyone equal" approach were to make sense.

Burden of proof is on you to show the cost is significant to them. You have yet to make the claim.

And the empirical evidence shows that they recruit Arab men between the ages of 15 and 55, which empirically demonstrates that it is less expensive for them to find recruits in this demographic group. You cannot rebut this just by waving your hands and arguing that, maybe, if they really WANTED to they could get other types of suicide bombers, and it doesn't strike me as being a mere coincidence that such a high fraction of suicide bombers fit the profile I presented.

I put it in economic terms for you, 100 versus 110 dollars being insiginficant. Even a five time increase in a cell phone is insignificant. You handwave away that objection by saying lowering the terrorist funding is the ultimate goal.

In both of your cases, the cost is negligible compared to the income of even a single person. With suicide bombers, it obviously requires time and significant resources to recruit them because there JUST AREN'T THAT MANY. If Al Qaeda could easily recruit thousands of suicide bombers, as you and some others implied that they could, why haven't they done that, already?

Obviously the cost of recruitment is non-negligible, and the fact that such a huge proportion of airplane terrorists in the US have fit the profile I originally presented demonstrates empirically that the difference in recruiting from other demographics for them is non-negligible (otherwise we would expect to see suicide bombers more evenly distributed along racial lines since they really wouldn't care who they were getting and would be indifferent towards recruiting people from other groups).

No, it is not. Stopping suicide attacks is the goal. By the way, evidence has already been posted of tens of thousands of people attending extremist conferences who are non-Muslim, and you're willfully ignoring it.

And, again, those people are not blowing up airplanes in the US--which is the primary issue that airport security in the US is trying to prevent (they have other tasks as well, such as drug enforcement, but really the increase in airport security was entirely sold to the population as a counter-terror mechanism).

And where are the additional suicide bombings occuring as a result of lax airport security? Face it, you've got nothing. Just a feeling that if you focus on Muslims they'll be less suicide bombings.

And the empirical observation that of recent suicide bombers in the US, an incredibly disproportionate (and seriously statistically significant) fraction of them have been male Arab Muslims between 15 and 55.

Let's not forget that you're suggesting taking away civil liberties

Sorry, being free from airport security checks when you fly is not a civil liberty. That is an incredibly disingenuous presentation, even for you.

and having a policy which would encourage racism among security guards, not exactly the most intellectual people.

I'm not taking sides with the guy who wanted to just let them go with their gut, now am I?

Or did you forget that, that a guard could from then on search Muslims whenever he wanted and point to your now overriding policy, even in cases when all other factors are not equal?

Ugh. You're so good at killing strawmen. Do you have to practice, or does it come naturally to you? Furthermore, how would the "go with your gut" method make this impracticable for a security guard? If you're advocating random checks, instead, then we're back to square one: an East Asian grandma with her three grandkids is less likely to be a suicide bomber than a 30 year-old male Arab Muslim traveling alone.

Your "policy" would create a clusterfuck of Muslim abuse and all in the name of "clarity" and "focus."

Airport searches do not constitute "abuse" in any meaningful definition of the term. And I would be focusing resources in the name of such irrelevant goals as "safety," "efficiency," "protection of the right to life," etc.

If a suicide attack happens as a result of 1. too lax background checks into a Muslim extremist hired at an airport (let's not forget the first point was hiring Muslim airport guards what a joke) or 2. a Muslim man getting on an airplane because of some insane "balance" policy where a white American mom was searched instead of the Muslim man who was suspicious and the guy turning out to be a terrorist, then I'll change my mind on the issue.

Yet that is precisely the necessary outcome that you're advocating in favor of--search everyone as if they were the same when they're not. Your "insane balance" policy seems to be precisely what the US has implemented in terms of security checks, and if you accept that such checks have a non-zero probability of preventing terrorist attacks on our airline, and concede that different types of people present different levels of risk in terms of such attacks, then you must agree that your policy creates greater risk. As to your absurd "Balance is fine, as long as nothing happens" concept, am I correct in my reading that the magic number for you is ONE? Weren't you the one who was mocking me for allegedly claiming that there was some magic number of Muslim terrorists who would justify searches (as opposed to a PROPORTION, which is self-evidently the correct way of approaching the issue)?

For now I'm going to assume security guards know how to do their job because, you know, they have fucking training and they can tell when to search a suspicious Muslim man and when to let the guy go.

You just said that these people aren't intellectuals! Are they smart, responsible people or aren't they? If they can implement the "gut feeling" policy (which is clearly what you're advocating here--applying the "search everyone" technique doesn't have anything to do with "fucking training" to "tell when to search a suspicious Muslim man"), why wouldn't they be able to implement something that flags tickets based on the characteristics of the passenger, with some input from the personnel in the field, as opposed to random ticket pulls?

You just made that fucking shit up: any decent security guard knows how to tell who's dangerous and who's not and doesn't need a "policy" to search more Muslims. Balance my ass.

Right. They can just do it on their own, even though an overwhelming number of retards like you and your ilk in this thread would come out and decry them as racist bigots if they actually practiced the method that I've proposed.

This "liberals have had their way with airport security" is pretty fucking silly. I don't know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult.

You're totally wrong. It was meant to point out the obvious: in the US, people who advocate equality over human life in terms of airport searches have already won the policy discussion: people really are searched as if it's impossible to better target resources than "check everybody the same!"

It's obviously intended as an insult, but where are the suicide bombings on American or Western soil eh? Do you think that more discerning airport security would've stopped the Iraqi doctors in the UK? Give me a break.

I think a more discerning airport security would've had a HIGHER PROBABILITY of stopping them. El Al stops people like that all the fucking time since they would've answered the main security questions wrong (none of El Al's screening questions deal with profession or education levels--at least as of the last time I flew with them). For instance, they were male Iraqi Muslims who had traveled fairly extensively. They could've tried to excuse that behavior (I'm not sure what the follow-ups are for people flagged by the first questions) by pointing out that they were doctors, but El Al would've at least gotten them to talk about that point.

[Master of Ossus]

I don't think MoO is a racist shitbag. If I did I'd call him a racist shitbag, this being SDN.

How about some evidence of this "balance" policy where a white American mom gets searched over a suspicious Muslim guy boarding an airplane, all because corporate leaders are afraid of Muslim backlash? Or was that just some hypothetical situation MoO made up to show some fairy tale balance policy letting terrorists get away? Kinnison mentioned the general, but that's got nothing to do with focus on Muslims and he didn't cite shit.

My understanding of how airport screening works is that everyone goes through the little metal detectors the same way, some people's bags are randomly picked for additional processing and a few passengers are randomly pulled by ticket number for additional processing when they reach the gate. At no point in that process does anyone stop to think that not all of the bags are equally likely to contain bombs, that not all passengers are equally likely to be suicide bombers, etc.

Moreover, the specifics of the airport screening process are not pertinent to the discussion of finding acceptable forms of discrimination--whether or not airports DO check out passengers' race and religion has no bearing on whether or not I find such conduct acceptable. The only point where this fact is really on-topic is in my throw-away discussion of how people like you have won the debate in the sense that everyone is searched equally (in my understanding). If that's not true, then I'd happily concede that part of the argument (partially because it's irrelevant, but partially because that would mean that I'm on the winning side in society).

PS. Can a neutral mod split the thread? While I'm loathe to separate out the OP since it completely vindicates my perspective and is pretty damning of my opponents, I think that at this point the whole "airport security" thing is really beside the point in the first post.

[General Zod]

Gee, who below is more likely to be a terrorist? (wrings hands) Who who who?

>snip<

Way to completely miss my point. If you can't tell who's an Arab just by looking when screening people then just you've wasted a whole lot of time for nothing with false positives, which is exactly what MOO is saying this is supposed to somehow save.

[Master of Ossus]

Pelranius? And, btw, what is stupid about using a method that would inexpensively help focus searches better? Even if you had to search everyone who looked like they might be an Arab, that's still a lower fraction of the population than the entire thing, and it could be useful.

My picture above was an example of why it's stupid. If you can't tell which one of them is Arab just by looking, then it's a pretty shitty system that leads to a lot of false positives and wasting time as a result. If a genuine terrorist was trying to get in, why would they be truthful about their country of origin or their race if they're aware of the profiling going on?

(I somehow missed this one). False dilemma fallacy. The existence of false positives does not mean we should revert to "search everyone." Need I point out that it cannot possibly be more wasteful of time or resources than the current "everyone's the same" approach? I admit that it's hard to check the veracity of documents, since skilled forgers can make them look good, but the current system suffers from this flaw as well, and at least requires that they go to the effort of finding a skilled forger. Finally, race is difficult to conceal, and even if a security guard can't be 100% sure in every single instance, it's got to be better than checking everyone as if we have no other source of information but what the traveler says.

[Master of Ossus]

Gee, who below is more likely to be a terrorist? (wrings hands) Who who who?

>snip<

Way to completely miss my point. If you can't tell who's an Arab just by looking when screening people then just you've wasted a whole lot of time for nothing with false positives, which is exactly what MOO is saying this is supposed to somehow save.

Yes. It's better than checking EVERY SINGLE PERSON EQUALLY. Even if it's not 100% foolproof, if you can eliminate some people from your search quickly then it's better. That's the whole point, which you've been studiously ignoring since the thread started. Your entire "Where's Waldo?" exercise is a perfect example of a red herring.

[General Zod]

(I somehow missed this one). False dilemma fallacy. The existence of false positives does not mean we should revert to "search everyone." Need I point out that it cannot possibly be more wasteful of time or resources than the current "everyone's the same" approach? I admit that it's hard to check the veracity of documents, since skilled forgers can make them look good, but the current system suffers from this flaw as well, and at least requires that they go to the effort of finding a skilled forger. Finally, race is difficult to conceal, and even if a security guard can't be 100% sure in every single instance, it's got to be better than checking everyone as if we have no other source of information but what the traveler says.

If race really is that difficult to conceal then you should be able to easily identify which person is Arab in my image. Otherwise I'm failing to see how your policy will somehow "save time and effort" as opposed to merely creating a lot of false positives and wasting time when it could be better spent on other criteria.

[General Zod]

Yes. It's better than checking EVERY SINGLE PERSON EQUALLY. Even if it's not 100% foolproof, if you can eliminate some people from your search quickly then it's better. That's the whole point, which you've been studiously ignoring since the thread started. Your entire "Where's Waldo?" exercise is a perfect example of a red herring.

You've been claiming you can't hide your race as though it's supposed to be some magic bullet, I'm calling bullshit that race is not that easy to identify and if Al Qaeda wanted to slip in, they'd use their more white looking members to do so.

[Master of Ossus]

If race really is that difficult to conceal then you should be able to easily identify which person is Arab in my image. Otherwise I'm failing to see how your policy will somehow "save time and effort" as opposed to merely creating a lot of false positives and wasting time when it could be better spent on other criteria.

False positives are irrelevant, because the alternative treats EVERYONE as a positive. The point is that you can generate some negatives with confidence.

You've been claiming you can't hide your race as though it's supposed to be some magic bullet, I'm calling bullshit that race is not that easy to identify and if Al Qaeda wanted to slip in, they'd use their more white looking members to do so.

I have answered this point numerous times, and I'm not going to do it again for your benefit. Go back and read the fucking thread.

[Gil Hamilton]

If you are concerned about people bombing airplanes, instead of racial profiling why not focus more on bomb detection rather than racial profiling? Whether your a member of al-Qaeda or a crazy militia dude from Montana, you can't blow anything up without explosives and the amount of explosives effectively needed to down a passenger jet is significant enough that it would be more difficult, to say the least, to disguise.

Focusing your limited resources on actual bomb detection is even better than randomly searching brown people which you guess might be part of a specific race more than white people, because it specifically targets the tools needed to commit the acts. Then you don't have racially profile anyone. Better yet, if you force terrorists to have to have better explosives or more convoluted schemes in order to sneak bombs aboard planes, you increase the likelihood of them killing themselves before they take anyone with them and increase the operating cost even if you do everything right as well. Plus, more complicate explosive schemes are also harder to assemble and then detonate. Remember the infamous Shoe Bomber who snuck some explosives aboard in the sole of his shoes and then got foiled because his shoe bomb was a piece of shit that he couldn't get to explode.

[Master of Ossus]

If you are concerned about people bombing airplanes, instead of racial profiling why not focus more on bomb detection rather than racial profiling? Whether your a member of al-Qaeda or a crazy militia dude from Montana, you can't blow anything up without explosives and the amount of explosives effectively needed to down a passenger jet is significant enough that it would be more difficult, to say the least, to disguise.

I agree that more might be done to detect explosives, specifically, but that is not the current policy (which tends to indicate that finding people is very important, too), and explosives detection does not, generally, prevent things like 9/11--I suppose the overall goal is to more generically prevent terrorist attacks.

However, even if you think there are other options, I don't think that defeats the overall purpose of the thread, which is to find an acceptable form of discrimination. Even if we had very good bomb-detection equipment, assuming that we still had airport screeners there might still be a place for profiling passengers and taking into account their race, religion, travel history, and other personal characteristics.

[brianeyci]

My understanding of how airport screening works is that everyone goes through the little metal detectors the same way, some people's bags are randomly picked for additional processing and a few passengers are randomly pulled by ticket number for additional processing when they reach the gate. At no point in that process does anyone stop to think that not all of the bags are equally likely to contain bombs, that not all passengers are equally likely to be suicide bombers, etc.

What would you agree to be the ideal situation? Search every bag, do background checks on everybody. Since we can't do that, we have to threaten everybody with the possibility of this, because that's the only real protection there is.

You make it sound as if the terrorists "adapting" is a serious thorn in their side. They will know any official policy to target Muslims and then take countermeasures. You keep saying this is significant, but that's still to be proven since countermeasures are devastatingly simple (declare yourself Christian or find lighter skinned people whee.) The threat of being searched is a far greater deterrent than the actual search itself. Not to mention in certain ports, every container is searched with high technology devices like in Hong Kong. If only a small fraction of all bags can be searched, all bags must be threatened with a search or else terrorists would attack at the weak point. What part of that logic do you not understand?

You say once the terrorists adapt, the government can adapt back to some other policy. This isn't an on or off switch we're talking about here. Once liberties are taken away it is terribly hard to earn them back. If discrimination against Muslims becomes accepted, it doesn't matter if fifty years down the line suicide bombings become rare. Muslims will have to fight tooth and nail to earn back respect, if ever, and probably never get it back. Meanwhile, terrorists will laugh all the way to the bank circumventing your countermeasure which gets outdated the day the discover it.

By the way you cannot ignore the practical realities of an official policy to target Muslims. Someone brought up airport lists. If your approach is impractical because A. security guards will use it to unfairly target Muslims with no other risk factors (simply being Muslim is not enough) and B. it will be as stupidly managed as the no-fly list, then your idea is total bullshit. Saying that in some ideal world your idea would be implemented perfectly instead of used as an excuse by racist people to search every Muslim they come across is the ultimate dodge.

Moreover, the specifics of the airport screening process are not pertinent to the discussion of finding acceptable forms of discrimination--whether or not airports DO check out passengers' race and religion has no bearing on whether or not I find such conduct acceptable. The only point where this fact is really on-topic is in my throw-away discussion of how people like you have won the debate in the sense that everyone is searched equally (in my understanding). If that's not true, then I'd happily concede that part of the argument (partially because it's irrelevant, but partially because that would mean that I'm on the winning side in society).

Great, you've shown that Mr. Six Pack rent-a-cop looks at a Muslim with more suspicion than at a white mom with kids, and that instinct and intangibles such as gut feeling have a lot to do with security work. Way to go. You've proven nothing.

[Master of Ossus]

What would you agree to be the ideal situation? Search every bag, do background checks on everybody. Since we can't do that, we have to threaten everybody with the possibility of this, because that's the only real protection there is.

Which is why I think there should be some lower level of screening for everyone, with elevated probabilities of luggage checks for higher risk individuals. I have repeatedly pointed out this solution and you have totally ignored it.

You make it sound as if the terrorists "adapting" is a serious thorn in their side. They will know any official policy to target Muslims and then take countermeasures. You keep saying this is significant, but that's still to be proven since countermeasures are devastatingly simple (declare yourself Christian or find lighter skinned people whee.)

Again, the countermeasure is conceptually simple but much more difficult to actually execute for terrorists--a point you have studiously ignored this entire time. No one complains about the requirement for government-issued ID, even though fake ID's are pretty easy to make and to purchase. Why are they required, even if countering them is "devastatingly simple?"

Moreover, under the current "check everyone equally" system, there is NO INCENTIVE for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to even bother having to look for such individuals. Does this not bother you, even though all of the 9/11 attackers, and the Shoe Bomber, and the Iraqi Doctors in England, and the train bombers in Madrid, were all Arabs?

The threat of being searched is a far greater deterrent than the actual search itself.

Brilliant, which is why we should increase the threat level for particularly dangerous travelers. Do you not agree?

Not to mention in certain ports, every container is searched with high technology devices like in Hong Kong. If only a small fraction of all bags can be searched, all bags must be threatened with a search or else terrorists would attack at the weak point. What part of that logic do you not understand?

I understand perfectly. YOU are totally ignoring the possibility that I advocate even minimal levels of screening for non-Arab bags, which is bullshit. I've consistently advocated some base-line level of scrutiny, with higher levels being applied to people who present a greater threat. You have argued against nothing but strawmen and false-dilemmas since this debate began. If you continue to do so, I will assume you are being purposefully dishonest.

You say once the terrorists adapt, the government can adapt back to some other policy. This isn't an on or off switch we're talking about here.

NO! That's the point that you're missing, consistently. There are degrees of scrutiny to which people in airports can be subjected.

Once liberties are taken away it is terribly hard to earn them back.

What liberties? The right to be free from searches while entering an airport? The right to absolutely, completely unrestricted travel?

If discrimination against Muslims becomes accepted, it doesn't matter if fifty years down the line suicide bombings become rare.

Ummm... presumably, then, we wouldn't need the levels of airport security we have, now. And airport security is the ONLY place in which I've been advocating this form of discrimination.

Muslims will have to fight tooth and nail to earn back respect, if ever, and probably never get it back.

Which is so different from what's going on today.

Meanwhile, terrorists will laugh all the way to the bank circumventing your countermeasure which gets outdated the day the discover it.

No, because it's fricking hard for them to recruit people who are not Arabs. What part of this are you not understanding? If Al Qaeda could recruit terrorists from the East Asian Grandparents' Society just as easily as they could get male Arabs between 15 and 55, they'd already have done it.

By the way you cannot ignore the practical realities of an official policy to target Muslims. Someone brought up airport lists. If your approach is impractical because A. security guards will use it to unfairly target Muslims with no other risk factors (simply being Muslim is not enough)

Which is not the policy I've been advocating. But go on, continue with your dishonest strawmen even though I have explained to you NUMEROUS times the actual policy I intend to implement.

and B. it will be as stupidly managed as the no-fly list, then your idea is total bullshit.

Yes. Because one policy was mismanaged NO airport screening procedure can be properly applied.

Saying that in some ideal world your idea would be implemented perfectly instead of used as an excuse by racist people to search every Muslim they come across is the ultimate dodge.

No it's not because we're dealing with situations in which it is FAIR to discriminate. That's the whole point of the fucking thread, asshole. Moreover, how is it worse to discriminate with an official policy that creates inherent, statistical limits on discrimination than it is to just let "rent-a-cops" (your term) use their guts and search whoever they feel like.

Great, you've shown that Mr. Six Pack rent-a-cop looks at a Muslim with more suspicion than at a white mom with kids, and that instinct and intangibles such as gut feeling have a lot to do with security work. Way to go. You've proven nothing.

Except that your method also leads to discrimination. You know, that one that you've been advancing throughout this entire thread? The "gut feeling" idea? How can you argue that this form of discrimination is okay if individual people do it but not okay if it's done through policy that places inherent limits on the quantifiable discrimination that's applied? Moreover, the whole fucking point of the thread is to show what forms of discrimination are reasonable. If you think it's reasonable to discriminate by checking Muslims more often, then I HAVE PROVEN MY ORIGINAL POINT--something you've fought tooth-and-nail against admitting the entire time even though any reasonable observer will see that you've been utterly trounced in this debate.

[Gil Hamilton]

I agree that more might be done to detect explosives, specifically, but that is not the current policy (which tends to indicate that finding people is very important, too), and explosives detection does not, generally, prevent things like 9/11--I suppose the overall goal is to more generically prevent terrorist attacks.

Well, reading your post you mention suicide bombers and bombers in general alot, so I assumed you were looking for people who were looking to do a Pan Am Flight 103 rather than a 9/11. At which case, it seems to me that investing in equipment that is reasonably good at finding the signs of a explosive would be a good scheme for making terrorist attacks against passenger jets more complicated and expensive and thus accomplish what you want it to. Not to mention dangerous, since convoluted schemes involving explosives might well send the bomber packing to Allah before he gets to be a martyr, which I imagine is an unattractive to your jihadist on the go.

My point is that if you generalize your scheme for detection of the tools of terrorism, it doesn't matter if the terrorist is an irish guy, an arab, or a Klingon. You are looking for the tools he needs to commit a specific action, which is the discriminating category you are looking for. This can be taking to the silly extreme where you are accosting mom's with kids and ruining their formula by making them prove that the bottle they carried on the plane is formula or someone left toenail clippers in their carry on, of course, but some actual common sense should be built into any policy.

However, even if you think there are other options, I don't think that defeats the overall purpose of the thread, which is to find an acceptable form of discrimination. Even if we had very good bomb-detection equipment, assuming that we still had airport screeners there might still be a place for profiling passengers and taking into account their race, religion, travel history, and other personal characteristics.

The problem is that from what you posted in the thread, racial profiling judges them on their race, not their religion, travel history, or other personal characters (which might, in fact, be much better indicator than their race as being a potential terrorist.

I mean, if they are a mother of two and travelling with said children from Abu Dabi to New York, does it really matter if she's Arab or not to your screening process? She's still an unlikely candidate to blow anything up, so unless her kids had something like a ticking Tickle-Me-Ackbar doll and a "Death to Infidels '07" t-shirt, extra screening specifically on her because of race is a waste of resources if we are basing this on statistics. The point is making the terrorists job harder, as you said, but screening on race here would only make our job harder.

Or a guy flying from Saudi Arabia to Chicago who was travelling with a couple of suitcases but didn't happen to spring for a return ticket and acting weird and intense? By all means, screen the fuck out of him. However, race doesn't really play into it. After all, that's suspicious behavior for anyone, whether they are Arab, Irish, or Klingon and a good use of limited resources.

Hence, I think race shouldn't be a very high factor for screening, if one at all. If you randomly do searches based on race as a priority, then chances are you are going to be wasting resources screening people who with the barest amount of common sense you could see isn't a terrorist rather using those resources more efficiently. On top of not having political backlash from the increased amount of times a shitbird airport rent-a-cop decides to hassle someone and uses your profiling scheme as an excuse, which does happen.

Anecdotally, I've actually known a guy who the exact system you described managed to completely fuck up and he ended up in jail for two months before he got deported. Here is a news article about him. It's not mentioned in the article, but this guy had a female roommate who described him as a "putz" (yiddish not coincidental here) and was pretty much your average film and media student. Talking to Salam, you could see he wasn't a terrorist or for that matter in any way political or religious, but that's what happens when you go overboard with racial profiling and general crazy paranoia.

[Master of Ossus]

Well, reading your post you mention suicide bombers and bombers in general alot, so I assumed you were looking for people who were looking to do a Pan Am Flight 103 rather than a 9/11. At which case, it seems to me that investing in equipment that is reasonably good at finding the signs of a explosive would be a good scheme for making terrorist attacks against passenger jets more complicated and expensive and thus accomplish what you want it to. Not to mention dangerous, since convoluted schemes involving explosives might well send the bomber packing to Allah before he gets to be a martyr, which I imagine is an unattractive to your jihadist on the go.

While that's true, my understanding is that we're already doing that, but focusing our resources everywhere rather than concentrating them, and that improved equipment is prohibitively expensive even large airports.

My point is that if you generalize your scheme for detection of the tools of terrorism, it doesn't matter if the terrorist is an irish guy, an arab, or a Klingon. You are looking for the tools he needs to commit a specific action, which is the discriminating category you are looking for. This can be taking to the silly extreme where you are accosting mom's with kids and ruining their formula by making them prove that the bottle they carried on the plane is formula or someone left toenail clippers in their carry on, of course, but some actual common sense should be built into any policy.

I agree. That's why I've used the example of checking East Asian grandmothers traveling with their grandkids so often in this thread.

The problem is that from what you posted in the thread, racial profiling judges them on their race, not their religion, travel history, or other personal characters (which might, in fact, be much better indicator than their race as being a potential terrorist.

Where did I post this? I've consistently said that those factors must be accounted for, as well, but that race and religion can also be used.

I mean, if they are a mother of two and travelling with said children from Abu Dabi to New York, does it really matter if she's Arab or not to your screening process?

I think it should be accounted for, statistically, but that it's not the most important or even, necessarily, a very weighty factor in determining who to check.

She's still an unlikely candidate to blow anything up, so unless her kids had something like a ticking Tickle-Me-Ackbar doll and a "Death to Infidels '07" t-shirt, extra screening specifically on her because of race is a waste of resources if we are basing this on statistics. The point is making the terrorists job harder, as you said, but screening on race here would only make our job harder.

Or a guy flying from Saudi Arabia to Chicago who was travelling with a couple of suitcases but didn't happen to spring for a return ticket and acting weird and intense? By all means, screen the fuck out of him. However, race doesn't really play into it. After all, that's suspicious behavior for anyone, whether they are Arab, Irish, or Klingon and a good use of limited resources.

But you think that an East Asian grandmother traveling with her grandkids who acts "weird and intense" and who's going on a one-way trip is exhibiting suspicious behavior to the same degree? I'm going to have to disagree with you, there. We know that a very disproportionate fraction of terrorists on airplanes are Arab men, and so the same behaviors in them should be treated with even higher scrutiny.

Hence, I think race shouldn't be a very high factor for screening, if one at all. If you randomly do searches based on race as a priority, then chances are you are going to be wasting resources screening people who with the barest amount of common sense you could see isn't a terrorist rather using those resources more efficiently.

I think any system wastes some level of resources checking everyone, and I don't think that race should necessarily be an important factor, but I definitely have no problem with including it in a statistically-driven selection model designed to minimize the risk of terrorists successfully perpetrating attacks.

On top of not having political backlash from the increased amount of times a shitbird airport rent-a-cop decides to hassle someone and uses your profiling scheme as an excuse, which does happen.

The political backlash angle is a dodge from the thread, which asks for acceptable examples of discrimination. It's acceptable to us, not to some random idiots on the street. Moreover, the "gut feeling" idea is at least as bad as using a statistical selection criteria since it more easily lends itself to abuse by not adequately weighting the various factors involved.

Anecdotally, I've actually known a guy who the exact system you described managed to completely fuck up and he ended up in jail for two months before he got deported. Here is a news article about him. It's not mentioned in the article, but this guy had a female roommate who described him as a "putz" (yiddish not coincidental here) and was pretty much your average film and media student. Talking to Salam, you could see he wasn't a terrorist or for that matter in any way political or religious, but that's what happens when you go overboard with racial profiling and general crazy paranoia.

We're not talking about deporting people, though, we're talking about airport screening procedures. There is no right to air-travel in the US. Moreover, according to the article you cited was picked out by a random search and the contents of his bag were what did him in, not any a priori judgment created by the screening process. I'm sure there will be false-positives in any screening process, where people who aren't actually terrorists are tabbed for additional scrutiny or even kept off planes. That doesn't mean we should shrug our shoulders and pick a system that's inefficient at identifying the people who are actually threats.

[Darth Wong]

So if a bunch of pictures of darker-skinned Jews are shoved in front of you, you figure they should all be treated as terrorists?

Oh yes, that was my entire point....

Well, since you apparently think I misrepresented you so horribly, why don't you explain exactly what your point is? Do you believe that we should detain and search people at airports based on their skin colour? If so, just how do you plan on differentiating between different ethnicities of olive-skinned people, or do you just figure on getting them all?

[Lord Poe]

Well, since you apparently think I misrepresented you so horribly, why don't you explain exactly what your point is? Do you believe that we should detain and search people at airports based on their skin colour? If so, just how do you plan on differentiating between different ethnicities of olive-skinned people, or do you just figure on getting them all?

My point was, (Again, sticking with the OP and the issues Brian raised) it isn't that hard to guess who just might happen to be a suicide bombing, blow up planes terrorist based on the vast majority of people who have committed these acts if you had a choice between Opie Taylor and a guy in a turban who looks like the vast majority of people who have committed these acts. So its a matter of "let's search everybody equally" vs "let's concentrate our resources on who is most likely to blow up a plane today."

It's really not that difficult.

[brianeyci]

If you think it's reasonable to discriminate by checking Muslims more often, then I HAVE PROVEN MY ORIGINAL POINT--something you've fought tooth-and-nail against admitting the entire time even though any reasonable observer will see that you've been utterly trounced in this debate.

Silly me, to assume when you mentioned a "policy" to target Muslims, to think that you wanted to expand discrimination against Muslims with an official government or corporate directive to target them. Silly me, to assume when you mentioned white mom getting searched over guy who looks suspicious like Bin Laden, to assume that such a situation actually happened instead of pulled out of your ass. Silly me, to assume that we're talking about more than just whether or not something is discrimination, but about degree of discrimination as well.

You had no original point: you responded to my post which was a rebuttal to kinnison. If your whole rebuttal is to say such discrimination exists already and therefore I lose, then you're either being dishonest or brain dead because any reasonable observer would interpret your proposal as a vast expansion of discrimination since in our society discrimination based on religion and race are taboo, and rightfully so.

Face it you lost. If you try and say you are not claiming an expansion of discrimination, it's all there for people to read. You have yet to meet the burden of proof that an expansion of discrimination is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, and all of your assumptions are based on absolutely nothing except your need to feel something is being "done" against the terrorists.

[Master of Ossus]

Silly me, to assume when you mentioned a "policy" to target Muslims, to think that you wanted to expand discrimination against Muslims with an official government or corporate directive to target them. Silly me, to assume when you mentioned white mom getting searched over guy who looks suspicious like Bin Laden, to assume that such a situation actually happened instead of pulled out of your ass. Silly me, to assume that we're talking about more than just whether or not something is discrimination, but about degree of discrimination as well.

Who gives a shit? The whole point of this thread is to find some acceptable forms of discrimination. I have named one that I find more than acceptable. You're disagreeing with my analysis, but you cannot refute the idea that it's acceptable by pointing out that it expands the degree of discrimination in society--THE DISCRIMINATION IS ACCEPTABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE, ASSTARD. It's irrelevant if it's an expansion of current levels of discrimination.

You had no original point: you responded to my post which was a rebuttal to kinnison. If your whole rebuttal is to say such discrimination exists already and therefore I lose, then you're either being dishonest or brain dead because any reasonable observer would interpret your proposal as a vast expansion of discrimination since in our society discrimination based on religion and race are taboo, and rightfully so.

Do you truly think that anyone who isn't a mindless retard like you are will look over my posts and say to themselves, "Gee. Master of Ossus has no arguments other than that discrimination already exists?" The whole point of this thread is that the form of discrimination that I've been advocating is acceptable. You obviously disagree with that, but you haven't been able to state any GROUNDS for that disagreement other than to point out that it's discrimination. You haven't even argued, "Okay. It might save lives, but equality is more important." You've just been arguing that equality is important. As for the "taboo" angle--who gives a shit? I've already conceded that large elements of our society do not agree with me--including the people who are responsible for airport security in the country. The point is that I FIND IT ACCEPTABLE, and have clearly and repeatedly articulated my reasoning for this. It's not good enough, given my arguments, to claim that race and religion are sacred cows that we're not allowed to use--you have to JUSTIFY their status as being above scrutiny in the context of airport security--something you haven't even attempted to do.

Face it you lost.

Yes. You have destroyed a vast array of arguments that aren't even remotely related to my main one. You've also demonstrated a fascinating degree of cognitive dissonance in your ability to avoid the main point of the thread, as if my arguments and the issue at hand are not in any way related.

If you try and say you are not claiming an expansion of discrimination, it's all there for people to read. You have yet to meet the burden of proof that an expansion of discrimination is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks,

It's not necessary, since it's theoretically possible to search everyone. However, it's efficient, given that we have limited resources and it makes things safer.

and all of your assumptions are based on absolutely nothing except your need to feel something is being "done" against the terrorists.

Bullshit. I've noted repeatedly that I think we spend TOO MUCH money on securing airports from terrorists, but given that we're spending that much money I think it should be spent as efficiently as possible. What part of this is too hard for you to comprehend?

The whole point of this thread is to show some form of discrimination that is reasonable. It's irrelevant whether that's an expansion or not of current models of discrimination. You cannot respond to a thread asking us to "name some acceptable forms of discrimination" by pointing out that someone else is trying to discriminate MORE than what society is already doing, since that has absolutely no bearing on whether or not this form of discrimination is reasonable.

Moreover, are you ever going to bother to do a point-by-point rebuttal of my statements, or is it enough for you to just handwave away all of your past, and obviously erroneous arguments (the idea that Al Qaeda has thousands of non-Muslim recruits was particularly outlandish) by using this stupid "you're losing! Watch me kill more strawmen!!" posts?

[Redleader34]

The problem, silly crypto-racists, are black muslims. It takes three black muslims, who want to get "cred" with the Saudis to hijack one airliner heading from Chiago, (Nation of Islam) and then, boom goes your white house!

See! Its fun being racist man! I can do it to!

Realy though, would you all be willing to accept this policy for the Most Serial Killers = White Males? Policy? Mandory searching of every white male's trunk at all traffic stops, to make sure they aren't transporting a body?

[brianeyci]

Take a look at this MoO:

But because discrimination exists in shades of grey means that there is a point somewhere in the middle where people are going to strongly disagree over whether something is acceptable or not, like the many people who have tried to sue Hooters for discriminatory hiring policies.

Guess what: the only way to talk about discrimination, meaningful discrimination, is to debate these shades of gray. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you've gone on a quest to prove that seeing differences, discriminating, is needed for meaningful security. Stop the presses, let's go tell everyone, what a great victory! The entire point is to find this point somewhere in the middle which is acceptable, notwithstanding your protestations to the contrary that the shades of grey are meaningless and we should only discuss 1 or 0, discriminate or not discriminate.

I say the right spot is where we are now: either you say we need to shift to the right and have more discrimination for Muslims which you provide no proof, or you say discrimination exists, belonging to the no shit sherlock category since "to discriminate" means to see differences between terrorists and normal people. Whether your position is the former or the latter you either prove nothing at all or you prove nothing of substance. Take your pick Master of Assness.