posted 01-19-2002 08:17 PM               

But still. When the only person we know of who left the country to fight for the Taliban was a white guy from the suburbs, it puts a whole new spin on racial profiling. (Of course, it’s arguable that he’s in the news because he’s white, and Grand Wizard of Fatherland Security John "El Duce" Ashcroft recently told us all that he won’t be seeking the death penalty for Mr. Lindh. But I’m trying to avoid drawing conclusions.) Who do we look for? Of course, it’s not inappropriate for us to notice that a lot of the guys who are doing bad things to us seem to have similar facial features. And I don’t even think it’s inappropriate for scared people to be unsurprised when a given terrorist has clearly refused the in-flight meal of pork chops wrapped in bacon.

But you’ve still got guys like John Walker Lindh. Lindh joined the Taliban of his own free will and not because of any kind of recruitment, but he’s still a wild card in the racial profiling drama, I think. I’m pretty sure the Australian guy who joined the Taliban was white as well.

My point is that it’s not impossible for terrorist organizations to make their way around any kind of racial profiling procedures. Are the authorities looking for Arab men in their mid-20s? Find a disgruntled middle-aged white guy to do your dirty work. It’s not as if there aren’t any around.

posted 01-19-2002 08:18 PM               

But I think that may be a bit too simplistic, especially after going over some of the examples in this article. I still think there’s no justification for ‘hard’ profiling. To begin with, there’s no indisputable evidence that particular ethnic groups are more likely to be drug traffickers; more importantly, even if there were, that evidence would only establish a correlation, not a causation. If we’re going to go down that road, we should start trying to figure out whether people with dark hair commit more crimes than people light hair, and start pulling them over. If that means we miss a drug trafficker or two, that’s the penalty we pay for embracing civil liberties and equal justice. We pay lip service to the notion that we would rather let ten guilty people go free than jail one innocent person. This is the type of situation in which that principle gets put to the test.

“But what about hijackers?” Well, I’m assuming that the reason people want to justify profiling in airports is because they think we should be willing to whatever it takes to ensure the safety of the airways, that there should be no cracks in the net. But profiling is all about deciding who to let through the cracks – we can’t search everyone, so we’ll focus our efforts on a certain group of people we think are more likely. If we’re really willing to do everything it takes, we ought to be spending the money to upgrade the technology and personnel at airports, and if that means higher taxes or higher ticket prices, so be it. Racial profiling is a short cut, and if we think it’s making us any safer, we’re deluding ourselves.