British Muslim MP gets stopped and searched again.

[Dartzap]

Beeb

Minister detained at US airport
Britain's first Muslim minister, Shahid Malik, says he is "deeply disappointed" that he was detained by airport security officials in America.

The international development minister was stopped and searched at Washington DC's Dulles airport after a series of meetings on tackling terrorism.

Mr Malik, MP for Dewsbury, West Yorks, had his hand luggage checked for explosives when returning to Heathrow.

He said the same thing happened to him at JFK airport in New York last year.

On that occasion he had been a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alongside the FBI and Muslim organisations, to talk about tackling extremism and defeating terrorism.

'Respect needed'

Mr Malik said he had received numerous apologies and assurances from the US authorities after that incident.

But he was again searched and detained by DHS officials on Sunday.

Mr Malik said two other Muslims were also detained.

"I am deeply disappointed," he said.

"The abusive attitude I endured last November I forgot about and I forgave, but I really do believe that British ministers and parliamentarians should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate and Congress.

"Obviously, there was no malice involved but it has to be said that the USA system does not inspire confidence."

So, next senator who comes through Heathrow to get a full body search?

True, our system is equally fucked up - a Black bloke got sent to jail upon entering the country due to being Black the other day

[General Zod]

Remind me again how racial profiling is supposed to be magically effective when we keep getting false positives like this one?

[Stuart]

Remind me again how racial profiling is supposed to be magically effective when we keep getting false positives like this one?

Nothing to do with racial profiling. Immigration treats everybody the same - like dirt. Look, I'm an ageing white American and a Rich, Rotund, Republican to boot and I get a hard time from immigration as well. One of the great pleasures (ha) of re-entering this country.

Nothing to do with ethnic background, everything to do with a messed-up system.

[General Zod]

Nothing to do with racial profiling.

Tell that to the people saying scrutinizing Muslims will somehow catch the terrorists and help keep them out more effectively.

[Kanastrous]

I'm not a Muslim, but I have olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and look like I am in my late 20s-mid 30s.

And I have been sent to the side for 'special screening' - my wife, too, whenever we travel together; she's Filipina - EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I or we have flown, since 9-11. No exceptions.

And that's okay. It's not a problem. I don't mind. I don't care.

Because I don't have a political axe to grind, I'm not looking for something to make political hay with, for the purpose of making hay, and I am not insulted by the fact that, for whatever reason, just walking up to the security checkpoint attracts TSA's interest.

I'm not looking for any apologies, I am not being persecuted, and I wish that people who are, and do, would just grow a fucking pair.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I wish fucking white people wouldn't deign to educate us brownies about what its REALLY like.

[Kanastrous]

Tell that to the people saying scrutinizing Muslims will somehow catch the terrorists and help keep them out more effectively.

What were the religious and ethnic identities of the guys who pulled off the 9-11 attacks, the London transit bombings, the attempted London/Glasgow attacks, and the Madrid transit bombings...?

What are the religious and ethnic identities of the people who were caught, before executing the Bojinka attacks, and the (alleged, at this point) follow-up attacks in London, and Germany?

Are you suggesting that there is no visible linkage, of any kind, at all, between Middle-Eastern/South Asian Muslim men in their twenties to their forties, and attacks of that kind?

None?

Not even a scintilla?

[Kanastrous]

I wish fucking white people wouldn't deign to educate us brownies about what its REALLY like.

I'm apparently 'brown' enough to attract attention.

Is my repeated, endless experience, being pulled apart from the crowd, for 'special screening,' somehow inauthentic, because I am insufficiently 'brown' (I indicated that I'm not a Muslim; I didn't say squat about my ethnicity...)?

I think your objection is to the fact that I'm not complaining enough, to suit you...

[General Zod]

Are you suggesting that there is no visible linkage, of any kind, at all, between Middle-Eastern/South Asian Muslim men in their twenties to their forties, and attacks of that kind?

None?

Not even a scintilla?

If you can show some actual evidence instead of these hilariously worthless appeals to emotion that screening people by race instead of more useful factors is actually effective (I'm talking solid numbers here) at preventing terrorist attacks, then you might actually have a point.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I wish fucking white people wouldn't deign to educate us brownies about what its REALLY like.

I'm apparently 'brown' enough to attract attention.

Is my repeated, endless experience, being pulled apart from the crowd, for 'special screening,' somehow inauthentic, because I am insufficiently 'brown' (I indicated that I'm not a Muslim; I didn't say squat about my ethnicity...)?

I think your objection is to the fact that I'm not complaining enough, to suit you...

Cut the psychbabble. My objection is hearing that Stuart just divined the enlightened motives of Immigration through his psychic analysis, or his brownifying camouflage or however else he can preach from his little box that we're just confused, I guess. Am I freaking out about it? Saying my rights are violated? No. But you acknowledge, as I do, that merely our complection is enough for people to judge we're incrementally less likely as a result to be a loyal American, or even a peaceful visitor. So I'm irritated by the bullshit that this simply must never happen and we're just crazy coming from white people who don't know what they're talking about.

[Kanastrous]

Cut the psychbabble.

Sorry; that wasn't intended to come off psycho-babbly.

Am I freaking out about it? Saying my rights are violated? No. But you acknowledge, as I do, that merely our complection is enough for people to judge we're incrementally less likely as a result to be a loyal American, or even a peaceful visitor.

Yes, I believe they're playing a statistics game whether they care to admit it, or not. One that I think has some validity to it, simply in that, historically, the most destructive attacks here and in Europe, have all been executed by people who fit that statistical profile to the letter.

So I'm irritated by the bullshit that this simply must never happen and we're just crazy coming from white people who don't know what they're talking about.

It's not crazy to be annoyed, I guess, but the implication that this is racism-for-the-sake-of-racism strikes me as self-serving and ridiculous, when people choose to make it.

If the 9-11 and other attacks had been executed by blue-eyed Nordic-looking grandmas, well, that's who would be getting special scrutiny. And necessarily so.

[Dartzap]

Doesn't the US have a security service who keeps a tab on known or possible suspects though? So if they do appear, they can quietly be taken off to a room somewhere, rather than searching all Asian-looking people?

[Kanastrous]

If you can show some actual evidence instead of these hilariously worthless appeals to emotion that screening people by race instead of more useful factors is actually effective (I'm talking solid numbers here) at preventing terrorist attacks, then you might actually have a point.

Take a look at the list of hijackers/attackers in the above-mentioned attacks and planned attacks: names, gender, ages, faith, countries-of-origin, then tell me that there is not 'actual evidence' establishing a correlation between people sharing most of those characteristics, and attacks of the kind we're talking about.

If you find hard evidence that some number of these people were, say, female Wiccans of Eastern European extraction in their 50s and 60s, I will certainly take it seriously, and revise my idea of what a reasonable profile would be, if we're looking to catch people who might be working toward pulling off future attacks.

[Kanastrous]

Doesn't the US have a security service who keeps a tab on known or possible suspects though? So if they do appear, they can quietly be taken off to a room somewhere, rather than searching all Asian-looking people?

You're describing the security services that rodgered the rottweiler, on 9-11.

The airport-gate-level screening is intended to provide a final layer of security in the hopes of catching people who get through the FBI's and CIA's big, loose, hole-filled net...

[Illuminatus Primus]

It's not crazy to be annoyed, I guess, but the implication that this is racism-for-the-sake-of-racism strikes me as self-serving and ridiculous, when people choose to make it.

That's not what was said. What was said was that this "wasn't racial profiling." You and I know that is completely ridiculous.

If the 9-11 and other attacks had been executed by blue-eyed Nordic-looking grandmas, well, that's who would be getting special scrutiny. And necessarily so.

I doubt this. Even if racial profiling is legitimate in tactics, I think the reaction is more severe and condoned if the racial profile matches that of a marginalized ethnic group. People may have been suspect of excessively Nordic/German people during World War II, but they were much more of Japanese and Asians, because it was already okay to dislike and mistreat them. So it goes for Arabs or other darker people, who are okay to marginalize because they're not a significant part of the elite.

[General Zod]

Take a look at the list of hijackers/attackers in the above-mentioned attacks and planned attacks: names, gender, ages, faith, countries-of-origin, then tell me that there is not 'actual evidence' establishing a correlation between people sharing most of those characteristics, and attacks of the kind we're talking about.

I said numbers, dumbass. Not categories. That means percentages of actual terrorists caught vs the amount of people detained to prove this is magically somehow effective. Detaining someone based on where they've traveled recently rather than whether their skin is a certain shade of brown is just one much more useful category to scrutinize someone by and results in a lot fewer false positives. Detaining the same British PM twice because he's Muslim? That's sheer incompetence and doesn't exactly say a lot about how successful this tactic is.

[Kanastrous]

That's not what was said. What was said was that this "wasn't racial profiling." You and I know that is completely ridiculous.

You're right; I agree that the denial is ridiculous.

If the 9-11 and other attacks had been executed by blue-eyed Nordic-looking grandmas, well, that's who would be getting special scrutiny. And necessarily so.

I doubt this. Even if racial profiling is legitimate in tactics, I think the reaction is more severe and condoned if the racial profile matches that of a marginalized ethnic group.

I think this is also true. But I think that the potential benefits make that reaction tolerable, even to the point of some people being inconvenienced more than others. Including me.

People may have been suspect of excessively Nordic/German people during World War II, but they were much more of Japanese and Asians, because it was already okay to dislike and mistreat them. So it goes for Arabs or other darker people, who are okay to marginalize because they're not a significant part of the elite.

That's all true. But demanding shoe-removal and extra metal-detection, etc, at an airport checkpoint <> dispossession and deportation and imprisonment, and I don't believe that it's the thin-end-of-the-wedge, either.

The moment I hear plans to round up 'brown people' and/or Muslims, just for being brown and/or Muslim, I'll be in the street screaming bloody murder, with the rest of the crowd. We're not within light-years of that, yet, and if 9-11 didn't do it, I don't see it happening any time soon.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Remind me again how racial profiling is supposed to be magically effective when we keep getting false positives like this one?

Nothing to do with racial profiling. Immigration treats everybody the same - like dirt. Look, I'm an ageing white American and a Rich, Rotund, Republican to boot and I get a hard time from immigration as well. One of the great pleasures (ha) of re-entering this country.

Nothing to do with ethnic background, everything to do with a messed-up system.

I'm whiter than 99% of the American population (no, seriously), and I was detained coming in from Canada by train at Buffalo (not precisely a high priority area) for an hour and a half. Why? Only after they had cleared me they told me it was because I had a new copy of my birth certificate. I dared cross the border with a new, equally legitimate certified copy, rather than one closer to three decades old, so sit and wait. Though the train actually was delayed longer for several other people. It was more amusing on the way up, though; the Quebecois customs officers in Canada actually did racially profile, dragging up every single black man on the train for interrogation in the lounge car so systematically that one of the men interrogated commented to me as we were talking in the Gare Centrale after our enormously delayed arrival about filing formal complaints. I speak French, and am white, and the Quebecois were as polite as hell to me, even deferent. The contrast could not be more glaring.

I am given to understand, however, that the customs agents in Canada are generally less of assholes than in most of America, but that this is made up for by the Quebecois ones on their boring being borish racist fiends, which is technically true, though, if you're a white person who speaks friend, you can dupe yourself into thinking they're the nicest customs agents in the world. Also I really like the fact that airport security in Canada seems to be run entirely by Sikhs; Americans should worry less about terrorists coming in via Canada with them on the job.

[Kanastrous]

I said numbers, dumbass.

Nineteen out of nineteen, on 9-11.

Thirty+ out of thirty+, in the Bali Bombings.

Four out of Four, in the London transit bombings.

Two of two, in the London/Glasgow attacks.

Eight of eight, in the Tunisia bombings.

Ten of ten, in the Istanbul publishing-house attack.

Three out of three, in the Istanbul synagogue attack.

Three for three, in the Bojinka plot.

Ten for ten, in the 1993 WTC bombing.

There's more, but I think this is an adequate illustration.

Not categories.

Numbers alone don't impress me as meaningful, any more than categories alone are meaningful.

If you have numbers of people fitting in other categories who have perpetrated similar attacks against similar targets, I'm still interested in seeing the data.

That means percentages of actual terrorists caught vs the amount of people detained to prove this is magically somehow effective.

It is reasonable to posit a deterrent effect based upon profiling. Your average middle-eastern/south-asian jihadi male, 20-40, probably realizes that his chances of making it onto a jetliner are lessened, when it's people similar to himself that get special security attention. So he may be less likely to try. This expectation is sufficiently reasonable, to underwrite a profile as a part of the screening process.

Detaining someone based on where they've traveled recently rather than whether their skin is a certain shade of brown is just one much more useful category to scrutinize someone by and results in a lot fewer false positives.

Then I think that it belongs on the list of screening criteria, in addition to the other screening standards.

Detaining the same British PM twice because he's Muslim? That's sheer incompetence and doesn't exactly say a lot about how successful this tactic is.

It demonstrates that the approach creates false positives, to the inconvenience of the person flagged.

It does not demonstrate that the approach doesn't offer a deterrent effect, or that it lacks the potential to detain genuinely dangerous people, if they decide to try and get through the screening.

[Stuart]

My objection is hearing that Stuart just divined the enlightened motives of Immigration through his psychic analysis, or his brownifying camouflage or however else he can preach from his little box that we're just confused, I guess. Am I freaking out about it? Saying my rights are violated? No. But you acknowledge, as I do, that merely our complection is enough for people to judge we're incrementally less likely as a result to be a loyal American, or even a peaceful visitor. So I'm irritated by the bullshit that this simply must never happen and we're just crazy coming from white people who don't know what they're talking about.

Perhaps what I meant came over wrongly. I don't deny that racial profiling happens or that its a significant factor. What I do say is that the immigration officials in the major points of entry are a peculiarly obnoxious and cantankerous bunch who take every possible excuse to make people's lives unpleasant. Not that the US versions are unique in that, it seems to be a common factor worldwide. Perhaps it goes with the job, I don't know. The existance of racial profile (repeat undeniable) is simply one more arrow in their quiver of techniques to make life unpleasant for everybody.

Never said it didn't happen, my point is that this sort of thing happens far too often.

[Elfdart]

While the airline I work for is one of the few major ones that still turns a profit, I hear from friends at American and the others that they've taken a real beating over the last several years, and so has US tourism. I doubt that "terrorism" is the reason, since other countries have also been bombed by fanatics. I think people just aren't going to pay good money for the privilege of being treated like convicts if they can possibly help it.

Nice going, assholes.

[Kanastrous]

Since it's your industry we're talking about, what would you put in place, if policy-making power was given to you?

[General Zod]

It is reasonable to posit a deterrent effect based upon profiling. Your average middle-eastern/south-asian jihadi male, 20-40, probably realizes that his chances of making it onto a jetliner are lessened, when it's people similar to himself that get special security attention. So he may be less likely to try. This expectation is sufficiently reasonable, to underwrite a profile as a part of the screening process.

So instead they switch to using their more ethnically ambiguous members. Maybe instead of shoveling out worthless figures pulled out of your ass you could show something resembling an official report on how effective it is.

It demonstrates that the approach creates false positives, to the inconvenience of the person flagged.

It does not demonstrate that the approach doesn't offer a deterrent effect, or that it lacks the potential to detain genuinely dangerous people, if they decide to try and get through the screening.

Burden of proof jackass. You claim that it's an effective deterrent, it's up to you to show evidence this is in fact true. The fact that they wind up catching the same government official twice shows that it's not very effective at screening anyone on anything except their skin color.

[Kanastrous]

So instead they switch to using their more ethnically ambiguous members.

They might.

Evidence that this is what they are doing?

Maybe instead of shoveling out worthless figures pulled out of your ass you could show something resembling an official report on how effective it is.

The figures were pulled from the relevant Wikipedia articles. If you want the links (if you can't bother to hit Wikipedia and see them there) I will oblige.

It's interesting that you find figures that appear to undermine your position 'worthless.'

Would figures from the same sources that supported your arguments, suddenly become 'worthwhile?

It does not demonstrate that the approach doesn't offer a deterrent effect,

Well, we agree there.

or that it lacks the potential to detain genuinely dangerous people, if they decide to try and get through the screening.

We agree there, too.

Burden of proof jackass. You claim that it's an effective deterrent, it's up to you to show evidence this is in fact true.

No, I indicated that I think it's reasonable to believe that it provides an effective deterrent. In the same way that it is reasonable to believe that security guards and surveillance cameras, deter a certain number of people who might like to rob banks, from doing so.

The fact that they wind up catching the same government official twice shows that it's not very effective at screening anyone on anything except their skin color.

If you dismiss deterrent potential.

Which suggests that you dismiss the deterrent potential of any policy, to deter any offense. Which perhaps you do.

[General Zod]

They might.

Evidence that this is what they are doing?

Sauce.

The figures were pulled from the relevant Wikipedia articles. If you want the links (if you can't bother to hit Wikipedia and see them there) I will oblige.

Wikipedia is not considered a credible source around here.

It's interesting that you find figures that appear to undermine your position 'worthless.'

Would figures from the same sources that supported your arguments, suddenly become 'worthwhile?

When you don't bother citing your figures sources whatsoever, I'm going to treat them skeptically dumbass.

It does not demonstrate that the approach doesn't offer a deterrent effect,

Well, we agree there.

or that it lacks the potential to detain genuinely dangerous people, if they decide to try and get through the screening.

We agree there, too.

Where the fuck are you getting these quotes, dimwit?

No, I indicated that I think it's reasonable to believe that it provides an effective deterrent. In the same way that it is reasonable to believe that security guards and surveillance cameras, deter a certain number of people who might like to rob banks, from doing so.

So prove it, instead of just saying "I think it's true".

If you dismiss deterrent potential.

Which suggests that you dismiss the deterrent potential of any policy, to deter any offense. Which perhaps you do.

An appeal to motive combined with a burden of proof and a strawman all wrapped into one. Try again fuckwit.