Airport security, profiling and saving money.

[meus_ovatio]

The recent internet kerfluffle over body-scanners and molester-guards has raised once again the question of racial profiling. I say "internet kerfluffle" because that is exactly what it was. Internet junkies and activists worked up the froth and bubble and... and then nothing. This is because we tend to get confused between The Internets and Real

Comments

[rasilio]

Actually no it would not be cheaper.

The lost revenue from Muslims not being allowed to fly would be far larger than the cost of say conducting a full body cavity search on every muslim who wishes to do so.

Of course this assumes that you accept the falsehood that Profiling must be based on a single characteristic such as race or religion.

The fact is that profiling done right considers all factors age, gender, race, religion, country of origin, documentation, dress, behavior, and so on and if you are not doing it then you are not doing security because you are wasting your scarce resources to conduct random searches on people that any 6th grader could determine pose no threat to anyone in about 10 seconds only to find a pair of nail clippers they mistakenly left in their pockets while the real threat sails past because he was not chosen for a random search.

[meus_ovatio]

I have no idea what you're talking about. The issue is about racial profiling specifically. Behavior profiling is something else. You've completely misinterpreted the stakes of the controversy as some kind of weird anti-profiling position. This is just silly. When people are arguing against racial profiling, they aren't arguing against profiling. They're arguing against racial profiling. Most people who are against racial profiling are for behavioral profiling, for example. Considering this, I have no idea what you're on about.

[rasilio]

Doesn't matter.

If 95% of all terrorists are males between the ages of 18 and 30 who originate from The Middle East or North Africa and worship Allah (which is true) then one cannot claim to actually be trying to make anything secure while ignoring this fact.

That those terrorists make up only 1/100th of 1% of the population who fits that profile is irrelevant devoting security to people who fit that profile is 19 times more likely to identify a terrorist than security spent investigating anyone who does not fit that profile.

The question then becomes what kind of extra security you will apply to this profile, one need not immediately jump to body cavity searches just because they fit the profile, it could be as simple as 3 extra questions asked by the security agents trained to detect deception to see if they warrant further investigation. In fact the extra security could be largely invisible to the target should he pass the check.

[meus_ovatio]

Oh it doesn't matter. And it's 19 times more likely. Hey, I'll make up numbers too. No wait, I won't. Ya see, the thing is, behavioral profiling is more effective. Since it not only catches the contemporary issue of terrorism, it also catches the other stuff as well. Unless of course if we're not really concerned with security as security, and more concerned with "catching terrorists" as some kind of stand-in for the concept.

[rasilio]

Are you denying that around 95% of all terrorists in the world today and especially those who would target US airlines fit the profile I defined?

That would make you about the only person on the planet who does.

That said where did you get the impression I was saying to use racial profiling in place of behavioral profiling? I was clearly indicating that both should be used at the same time and that the racial aspect of the profiling should inform the types of behavior anomalies that one should be looking for.

[meus_ovatio]

The only thing I'm doing or saying is those things that I do or say.

That said where did you get the impression I was saying to use racial profiling in place of behavioral profiling?
I don't get that impression. The only impression I have of this exchange is that you're railing on about something else entirely, as I said, having completely misinterpreted the argument to begin with, and flailing about with rhetorical questions and analogies about candy. You don't know what you're arguing, you're just arguing.

[prader]

Isn't the whole point of these "enhanced security" measures to prevent terrorists from terrorizing? If so, I think it just makes sense to figure out who is likely to be a terrorist.

If 95 out of 100 terrorist acts in Saudi Arabia were committed by white males between the ages of 30-50, I can practically guarantee the Saudi's wouldn't let hangups with racial issues prevent them from looking at me more closely.

[meus_ovatio]

Yes I know, the Middle East is a huge proponent of racial profiling, and as we all know, they have zero issues with terrorism.

[prader]

Are 95% of the people committing all these numerous terrorist acts in the middle east white people between a certain age?

[meus_ovatio]

95 percent? Is this more of the made-up rhetorical number nonsense again? In case you're a little behind on history, white people don't bomb airliners. They drop bombs.

[prader]

So basically when you have no valid response to a line of reasoning, you resort to this.

Good enough.

[meus_ovatio]

I had an entirely valid response. Someone just makes up numbers and throws generalities? Do the same. But oh that's different! My made-up numbers are valid! rofl

[prader]

The proper response, if you were curious at about getting to the truth and not, say, promoting an agenda, would be to ask where he got those numbers.

I'm curious about that myself.

[meus_ovatio]

Oh. Well could you do me a favor and e-mail the proper response protocol? I don't want to mess up again.

[prader]

Am I to assume that you are suddenly interested in getting to the truth, instead of promoting an agenda?

[meus_ovatio]

I think that you've done enough assuming already. But I know, you can't possibly continue if you don't have the proper assumptions in place. Because you're not really responding to anything here. You're just sort of waving your hands at some perceived "agenda". I mean, it drips out of your own mouth. So I guess I'll just have to let you engage in your conspiracy thinking, and let you rest satisfied that I'm just "pushing an agenda". OOOoooh... that sounds spooky.