Re: Take a Stand Against Sexual Assault: Resist the TSA
But why is it ok to inconvenience the Muslim if he is doing nothing wrong? I am sorry but that just doesnt seem right. Yes if he is giving you a reason then feel free to search and question, but if a guy happens to be of darker skin and dressed in Muslim garb and is standing in line that is not enough to just pull them aside and violate their liberties, not in this country I am sorry. That is why we are better than most, because you can be dark skinned and Muslim and not be discriminated against because of it.
And make no mistake, what you are suggesting is full on discrimination. Maybe it is justified in your mind and that is cool, but I am against discrimination in all of its forms and while I agree the measures we take now are ceremonial and dont really protect us it is unconstitutional to just walk through a line filled with people, pull aside anyone who looks Muslim and assume they are terrorists and move forward.
Actually, as I've indicated several times already, I basically agree. You're begging the question that "only" or "primarily" Muslims would be caught up in a system which emphasizes profiling, rather than one size fits all. Israel has many Muslim citizens and it's my understanding they pass through Israeli airports with ease.
I read an article recently by an American (WASP) who was pulled out of line for interrogation. Why? Because he had a significant number of passport stamps from middle eastern countries and Israeli security wanted to know why. He said the interrogation was intense, lasted maybe 15-20 minutes, and when the questioning was done, he was escorted to the head of the line.
Unless and until we can wrap our minds around the concept that not all "profiling" involves evil "racial profiling," then we'll never be able to intelligently discuss improving our security measures. Flip your assertions around, since all of these would-be terrorists come from certain countries, and since they all are followers of a certain religion, that means we should be concerned about Catholics? From France? Certainly any profiling regime would have to consider race, religion and country of origin. But not to the exclusion of other indicators that a traveler is up to no good or at least needs another look. How about considering age, sex, physical limitations and other factors? Police use common sense and their experience to pick out people who "don't look right" everyday and give those people a little extra attention. The Isreali's have just refined that process by several orders of magnitude.
What you're talking about is a crude, "round up the usual suspects" approach, which I'm not advocating.
If the police get a radio call about an armed robbery, and the suspect is described at looking like Conan O'Brien, what should the cops do? Stop AA, Latino and Asian dudes? Or start looking for guys with the map of Ireland on their puss? And if they do that, are they "racially profiling?"
So in your desire to avoid "violating the rights of Muslim Americans," you'd refer to violate the rights of ALL Americans? Apart from how silly that is, it doesn't improve our security, which is what this effort is supposed to be about.
Remember those Muslim dudes tossed off an airplane because: they were changing seats, talking loudly to each other in Arabic and requesting seatbelt extenders (which they didn't need) that could be used as weapons? They were tossed off the airplane and it was subsequently learned that these were "clerics" and their behavior was a stunt, designed to "prove" that there was a problem with "Islamophobia." Tell you what, these people SHOULD have been tossed off their flight, and it wouldn't have bothered me much if they'd been put on a no fly list (they could have taken Teddy Kennedy's slot). This is serious business. Lots of people have been murdered. And the Islamists would like to kill many more. It's not a game. And it's not a stunt.
