All Hank, all the time.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Hispanic isn't a race, it's an ethnicity. Speaking of which, where does it say what ethnicity you are on your passport? Because mine's pretty unclear on that, and I'm not really sure what it'd say if ethnicity were to be identified. Texan-Mexican-Polish-Italian? Same goes for my drivers license. And I've never seen the "ethnicity" section when I'm filling out my creditcard information at Southwest.com. Ditto for all of the above on religion.

Do we have to prove ethnicity back to our grandparents, or is parents enough? What if our grandparents are dead? Is an affidavit from my father saying my grandfather was an 9th generation Texan enough? What if we were born here, but English isn't our first language? If we were confirmed but haven't been to mass in 20 years do we still click off "Roman Catholic"?

Well, it depends. If you don't want to get searched at an airport, you should check off "Polish" and "Roman Catholic" when applying for a passport or visa or drivers license.

Fortunately, I'm sure that no one who wants to blow up a plane will ever think of anything like that.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/JonBenet_Ramsey_Murder




Apparently, the guy who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey only sort of wishes he had.

Isn't he a fugitive on some charges in California? Won't CO just transfer him to their custody?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Hispanic isn't a race, it's an ethnicity. Speaking of which, where does it say what ethnicity you are on your passport? Because mine's pretty unclear on that, and I'm not really sure what it'd say if ethnicity were to be identified. Texan-Mexican-Polish-Italian? Same goes for my drivers license. And I've never seen the "ethnicity" section when I'm filling out my creditcard information at Southwest.com. Ditto for all of the above on religion.

Do we have to prove ethnicity back to our grandparents, or is parents enough? What if our grandparents are dead? Is an affidavit from my father saying my grandfather was an 9th generation Texan enough? What if we were born here, but English isn't our first language? If we were confirmed but haven't been to mass in 20 years do we still click off "Roman Catholic"?

Hispanic is an ethnicty? How do you define ethnicity? Doesn't ethnicty usually pertain to a certain dialect of a language (or a language if it is not spoken by too many people) Hispanic can mean someone who speaks, or a descendent of somone who speaks Spanish with almost any dialect - correct? Does someone of Incan descent qualify as Hispanic? I don't think so. I could be wrong, but I don't think Hispanic qualifies as an ethnicity. It is too broad.

As for spotting ethnicty, you name is a big red flag. After that there are certain physical characteristics common to certain ethnic groups. Also an accent can be a help to pick you out. As for most Americans (that is anyone living in North or South America), and excluding some native Americans, most of us are muts so it is difficult to determine ethnicity. But as far as I know, there are not many muts joining terrorist cells or blowing up airplanes.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Hispanic is an ethnicty? How do you define ethnicity? Doesn't ethnicty usually pertain to a certain dialect of a language (or a language if it is not spoken by too many people) Hispanic can mean someone who speaks, or a descendent of somone who speaks Spanish with almost any dialect - correct? Does someone of Incan descent qualify as Hispanic? I don't think so. I could be wrong, but I don't think Hispanic qualifies as an ethnicity. It is too broad.

As for spotting ethnicty, you name is a big red flag. After that there are certain physical characteristics common to certain ethnic groups. Also an accent can be a help to pick you out. As for most Americans (that is anyone living in North or South America), and excluding some native Americans, most of us are muts so it is difficult to determine ethnicity. But as far as I know, there are not many muts joining terrorist cells or blowing up airplanes.

That whole "Richard Reid" thing keeps coming back to bite you in the ass on this one.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
That whole "Richard Reid" thing keeps coming back to bite you in the ass on this one.

a plane crashed yesterday. 1 plane going down is acceptable. do you have a second?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
a plane crashed yesterday. 1 plane going down is acceptable. do you have a second?

Huh? You are making less sense than usual today.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Spanky's argued more should be done. The "more" is profiling. You say profiling can't be done.

Don't be a moron. I didn't say that. Try reading my posts for a change.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
That whole "Richard Reid" thing keeps coming back to bite you in the ass on this one.

Not really. He was never going to get control of the plane. The biggest threat is conspiracies. Like with 9-11 or what happened in Britain. To be successful it takes many players, and they have to coordinate. Such organizations don't just spring up spontaneously. You need a whole group of people that have a common ideology.

It is in uncovering such conspiracies that profiling - especially ethnic profiling - is so important.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Not really. He was never going to get control of the plane. The biggest threat is conspiracies. Like with 9-11 or what happened in Britain. To be successful it takes many players, and they have to coordinate. Such organizations don't just spring up spontaneously. You need a whole group of people that have a common ideology.

It is in uncovering such conspiracies that profiling - especially ethnic profiling - is so important.

Reid was not trying to get control of the plane, he was trying to blow it up -- as were the conspirators recently arrested in Britain.

Is your theory that, by focusing on Arabs, you filter out the guys who are fanatic enough to try to explode a bomb on board, but too stupid to make a functioning bomb?

This notion gives me very little comfort, somehow.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Reid was not trying to get control of the plane, he was trying to blow it up -- as were the conspirators recently arrested in Britain.

Is your theory that, by focusing on Arabs, you filter out the guys who are fanatic enough to try to explode a bomb on board, but too stupid to make a functioning bomb?

This notion gives me very little comfort, somehow.

You don't think that given his mixed race, TSA might not have mistaken him for middle eastern?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
You don't think that given his mixed race, TSA might not have mistaken him for middle eastern?

The way he looked, sure. If he'd shaved and dressed differently, who knows?

A "looks middle eastern" profile will be so vague as to be meaningless. Hell, I went to school with a prince from Jordan -- he looked less middle eastern than Slave or Club.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Reid was not trying to get control of the plane, he was trying to blow it up -- as were the conspirators recently arrested in Britain.

Is your theory that, by focusing on Arabs, you filter out the guys who are fanatic enough to try to explode a bomb on board, but too stupid to make a functioning bomb?

This notion gives me very little comfort, somehow.

Did he really have much of a chance of blowing up the plane?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch

This notion gives me very little comfort, somehow.

So if you are getting on a plane, and six guys who are traveling together and are speaking Arabic (and have thick accents when using English) to eachother are getting on your plane, you don't want them to have a little more scrutiny?

If you do what them scrutinized more then what the hell is your point?

If not ( I think you are lying) don't you think they will be more likely to mess with the plane than your average passenger?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
So if you are getting on a plane, and six guys who are traveling together and are speaking Arabic (and have thick accents when using English) to eachother are getting on your plane, you don't want them to have a little more scrutiny?

If you do what them scrutinized more then what the hell is your point?

If not ( I think you are lying) don't you think they will be more likely to mess with the plane than your average passenger?

I have repeatedly said that I do not have a fundamental objection to profiling.

I am only trying to point out the practical problems -- one, that it can be so broad as to be meaningless, and two, that it can and likely would become the dispositive factor so that a guy who actually intends to blow up a plane doesn't get extra scrutiny because, well, he looks white and has a british name.

So, what the hell is my point? My point is that your test misses the one guy we know about who has actually boarded a plane with explosives and the intent to use them in recent years. What the hell is your point?



And to answer your other question (since you are following ppnyc's mode of responding to the same post twice) -- according to the BBC, the explosive in Reid's shoes may have been powerful enough to destroy the plane -- it's not entirely clear. But, c'mon -- if you can get on board without being searched, it can't be too hard.

The TATP would have been used to set alight more powerful explosives called PETN, which experts say would have been powerful enough to blow a hole in the side of the plane and cause it to crash.

link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1783237.stm

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Spanky
I agree with that notion, and I think most people on this board do to. My guess is that Arabs hijack more planes than any other nationality on a per capita basis. I assumed that the issue was for you that taking that statistic into account for profiling causes more damage to our civil liberties than it helps in stopping terrorism.

I find it hard to believe that you think that statistic is wrong.

I think that statistic is utterly irrelevant compared to the fact that there are far more Arabs don't blow up planes (hi Hank!) than Arabs that do. As a consequence, to suggest that Arabs are more likely, because they are Arabs, to be terrorists, is to act upon prejudice and not reason.