Quote:
Originally posted by Sidd Finch
If you've never seen the "drug-dealer" profiles, you fit them.
Unfortunately, so do 80% of other travellers. Which makes them a great way to show probable cause for a search, but not so great at picking out the drug dealers.
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http://www.cato.org/realaudio/drugwar/papers/duke.html
"Almost as offensive as relying on racial characteristics in a profile to justify searches or seizures is permitting the trivial and subjective profile characteristics to count as "reasonable" or "articulable" suspicion. Federal Circuit Judge Warren Ferguson observed that the DEA's profiles have a "chameleon-like way of adapting to any particular set of observations."16 In one case, a suspicious circumstance (profile characteristic) was deplaning first.17 In another, it was deplaning last.18 In a third, it was deplaning in the middle.19 A one-way ticket was said to be a suspicious circumstance in one case;20 a round-trip ticket was suspicious in another.21 Taking a non-stop flight was suspicious in one case,22 while changing planes was suspicious in another.23 Traveling alone fit a profile in one case,24 having a companion did so in another.25 Behaving nervously was a tip-off in one case,26 acting calmly was the tip-off in another.27
As even their users admit, the profiles are self-fulfilling. If the profiles are based on who is searched and found guilty, the guilty will necessarily fit the profiles. The DEA claims to catch 3,000 or more drug violators through the profiles,28 but no records are kept of how many people are hassled, detained or searched to produce the 3,000. Amazingly, the DEA keeps no records of the failures of the profile system."
Your analogy to drug profiling is apt. It's easy to say "Arab in a flight school" now. Prior to 9/11, that would not have fit any profile. Suppose the next attack uses a car, do we start profiling Arabs in automobiles?
