police work/racial profiling

[Jon Ford]

Margot-- the interview format URL I just sent out might give you some more 
insight into the situation. The whole question format is extremly intrusive, 
and anyone who was a real terrorist would simply lie.The point seems to get 
people to give up telephone numbers that can then be tapped--if this catches 
any terrorists, I will be surprised indeed. Anyone clever enough to be a 
terrorist would get around this.A parallel situation is the "red scare" 
committee with Joe McCarthy-- if you didn't come forward, that meant you 
were a commie. If you came forward and gave no names, that meant you were a 
commie.If you gave out names at random  a couple of people you didn't care 
much for, that made you a sort of hero for a couple of days, and could ruin 
the lives of the names you gave up. As for your analogy with "short plump 
blondes, that would be about 25,000,000 interviews, but in fact the profile 
here is not even that specific--and equally useless from a law-enforcement 
perspective: middle eastern men who aren't citizens. That would include 
about 20% of my students.The pure profiling you allude to happened right 
after Sep 11 and was quite extreme-- over 900 people are still in jail and 
their nmaes are not being released or what crimes they were "guilty" of. I 
could understand these "detainments" right after the incident, because we 
didn't want terorists to get out of the country to safety or to get in to 
cause more damage.But the interviews seem to herald a bit more extreme 
intrusion, and we must wonder where it will end.
I admit,my drug analogy wasn't very clear; let's say it is known that black 
men under 30 use a lot of drugs; so if we stop a lot of them and search 
their cars and interview them endlessly about all contacts they may have had 
or telephone numbers they have dialed in their lives, we're likely to find 
some drugs and some guilty parties--so do we go for that? That is an exact 
definition of racial profiling, and that's what this is, although it has 
been cleaned up a bit by the US attorneys. It doesn't happen with white drug 
users, like some on this list (I could name names!), because there would be 
too much outcry if this happened to whites. Even more relevant to the Sep 11 
case, there was little  aggressive "profiling" of right-wing white Christian 
gun nuts after the Tim McVey crime in Oklahoma--because these guys have 
clout,and are "true Americans"-- and because of their dominant racial 
type.Maybe
Jon


>From: Dusty MacMorgan <ghettotoo@yahoo.com>
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: Re: police work/racial profiling
>Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 13:02:51 -0800 (PST)
>
>
>Guess I might as well jump in with both feet.  Of Course it's racial
>profiling!  Profiling is a legitimate part of police work.  If 19
>short, plump, white, "blonde", middle-aged American women had murdered
>4,000 civilians, in cold blood, in the space of a few hours, would I,
>as a s.p.w.b.m.a.w, feel outraged if I was treated with some suspicion
>by law enforcement?  No!  I'd be outraged (and worried) if I were not!
>    As for the drug "analogy"...get busted walking down the street
>smokin' a doobie, and yeah, your friends and family might get
>scrutinizied. Drive an airplane into a skyscraper...  So?
>    (But thanks for the kind words when I first "applied for
>membership," Jon. ;^}
>---Margot
>
> > From: "Jon Ford" <jonmfordster@hotmail.com>
> > To: michaele@ando.pair.com, austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
> > Subject: Re: police work
> > Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 20:36:30 -0800
> >
> > It smacks of racial profiling to me. How would us white folks respond
> > to such a request? For instance, some of us use illegal drugs. How
> > would you  feel about such an "interview"? Give me a break.
> >
> > Jon
> >
> > >From: Michael Eisenstadt <michaele@ando.pair.com>
>
> > >I must say that the FBI letter to all the legal Arab
> > >residents seems to be good police work. Hundreds are
> > >leaving, some out of paranoia, others because they
> > >would flunk the interview.
>
>
>
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