Not just any men…you might want to look at the ethnic distributions (table 43) of the FBI uniform crime reports or the California DOJ statistics (these are better b/c they don’t lump Hispanics & whites together like the FBI does).

Might be illuminating.

As for this:

Would you agree then to limit the civil liberties of all men?

Well, OBVIOUSLY the police are going to pay more attention to men…as well as incrementally more attention to males from particularly crime prone groups. That means the FBI is going to have more wanted posters of men. That means the police are going to practice hand-to-hand takedowns on men rather than women. Etcetera.

If that means “limiting their civil liberties”, well, yes.

The point you’re eliding, however, is that the compromise between security and liberty (and please don’t bring up the standard quote on this issue, as it’s always a tradeoff) is going to be tilted in favor of security as the threat increases. One assault is not the same as the attempted murder of 50000 people.

your thought experiment proves one thing – that any tool used clumsily will fail miserably. BUT, no one is suggesting that “ethnic profiles” will be used to the exclusion of everything else (well, except perhaps the ACLU).

Let’s apply this logic of

“Those who argue against profiling are arguing that we should not use the one thing we do know about our enemies – that they are overwhelmingly male Islamic fundamentalists of Arab descent”

to another context. Most rapists and perpetrators of domestic violence are men. Would you agree then to limit the civil liberties of all men? Far more women are on the receiving end of this type of terrorism then the number of people who are victims of the type of terrorism you are referring to. If you don’t agree to limit the civil liberties of all men, then why restrict the civil liberties of Muslims?

-PS: Abhi still rocks.

Abhi: I get huge and turn green and…my pants tear off

dowdification at its most amusing

vinod and gc.

oy. i need a moment.

no, we cannot ban gc. every once in a while, he’s just fantastic to watch. abhi, i thought the title you suggested for his blogspot was amusing, but i hope no one gets the wrong idea here– opposing views are more than welcome. from abhi to vinod, we cover left to right, so not only are you sure to offend someone, you’re sure to equally delight someone else…

abhi, i feel like giving you a hug. it sounds like you were/are really angry. all defenders of liberty and freedom should be so idealistic, unrelenting and passionate.

back to chrismukkah and its attending insanity…

If there was an organized militia movement going around blowing up buildings, yeah, we’d want to start profiling these guys. But McVeigh and whassisname haven’t been followed by imitators.

In contrast, our friends at the religion of peace have opened up a veritable franchise of terrorism. A far from exhaustive list:

Oct 1983 – Marine Barracks Beirut, Lebanon – 243 Dec 1988 – Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie, Scotland – 244 Feb 1993 – World Trade Center NYC, NY – 6 Jun 1996 – Khobar Towers Dhahran, Saudi Arabia – 19 Aug 1998 – US Embassies Kenya/Tanzania – 224 Oct 2000 – USS Cole Aden, Yemen – 17 Sept 11 2001 – World Trade Center NYC, NY – 3000+ Pentagon Washington, DC United Airlines Flight 93

Right now, if you look at the links I proferred (linked under “this” above) – or at the State Department’s report on terrorism…sad to say, but it’s almost entirely Arab Muslims who’re doing the beheadings and bombings.

Tim McVeigh is the exception, not the rule.

if we make the job ‘easier’ and perhaps…cost effective.. by using profiling, we’re going to let a few timothy mcveighs and khaula nazirovs through the cracks.

A few perhaps, but Al Qaeda does not have a large B-team of Johnnie Walkers. He was a news story because he was an exception. In any case, the common denominator is Islam…and if they start sending non-Arab Muslims we can update our Bayesian filter accordingly.

Note that it is fallacious to assume that we can screen “everyone” as well as we can screen a targeted subset. You can theoretically devote infinite resources to screening just one person (background check, family check, monitoring, etc.), so the only way to screen efficiently is to screen a targeted subset.

Those who argue against profiling are arguing that we should not use the one thing we do know about our enemies – that they are overwhelmingly male Islamic fundamentalists of Arab descent.

yes. true. but the wahabbists are certainly recruiting nice white looking ladies in chechnya. the kind that blow up theaters and small children. if we make the job ‘easier’ and perhaps…cost effective.. by using profiling, we’re going to let a few timothy mcveighs and khaula nazirovs through the cracks.

vigilance means 100% vigilance…right?

also about objectivity: the ARTICLE wasn’t objective. there ain’t no such thing as objective reporting, depsite what journalism 101 teacher might have told you. the french have learned this… they’re either going to pick up le monde or liberation or le figaro – depending on whether they are right of center, left of center, or really right of center, respectively. journalistic objectivity is a pretty little myth, but it never works out so well in real life.