All Hank, all the time.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Please. You wouldn't bother. If you got one of those in your sights, you'd hit the driver for his pizza. and then go back to the store and get his next delivery.

Depends what's on the pizza.

Maybe I could entice (or just force) him into some noirish pizza game . . .

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I don't think you know what that word means.

Okay. Explain it.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Any of these guys ever hijacked an airplane?

Reid was the shoe-bomber (but I think his 1st name is "Richard")

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Reid was the shoe-bomber (but I think his 1st name is "Richard")

And, oddly, is a half jamaican/half white man who coverted to islam. Let him through, people.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Do you believe it is possible to make it a factor that does not become the only factor?

Yes. They will still do random searches. In addition, there are a lot more profiles out there. What about the caucasian male or female who has a terrorist counterpart, who has hidden a bomb in their stuff. Or a native born caucasian that has been converted to the cause and has cleaned up for the flight? I am sure they have developed profiles for them.

I am sure there is also a militia profile. If you are from rural West Virginia and your eyes are too close together. I don't know. But clearly if you are Black or Asian and from rural West Virginia there is not much of a chance of you being part of a terrorist militia.

When it comes to serial killers it is my understanding they are looking for white males from middle to upper white class families between the ages of twenty and fifty. When there is a serial killer on the loose I want them to work with the profiles they have.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Reid was the shoe-bomber (but I think his 1st name is "Richard")

You may be right. My bad.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes. They will still do random searches. In addition, there are a lot more profiles out there. What about the caucasian male or female who has a terrorist counterpart, who has hidden a bomb in their stuff. Or a native born caucasian that has been converted to the cause and has cleaned up for the flight? I am sure they have developed profiles for them.

I am sure there is also a militia profile. If you are from rural West Virginia and your eyes are too close together. I don't know. But clearly if you are Black or Asian and from rural West Virginia there is not much of a chance of you being part of a terrorist militia.

When it comes to serial killers it is my understanding they are looking for white males from middle to upper white class families between the ages of twenty and fifty. When there is a serial killer on the loose I want them to work with the profiles they have.

The risk with all these profiles you've developed is that they either become a simplistic, and too narrow, crutch ("search all Arabs" means "let the shoe bomber through") or they become so broad as to be meaningless (the "drug dealer" profiles the DEA used to have were so broad that pretty much any person flying alone, and some people not flying alone, fit them).

You can say race would be "a factor." But if you believe that everyone of Arab descent should be searched, then race is not "a factor." It is dispositive, at least in one direction.

The other question is one of resources. What % of travellers would have to be searched with this "factor"? Could the TSA handle that -- and still spare the resources to search other people who should be searched, and apply other meaningful security measures?

I do believe that race should be considered, but I don't know how that works in practicality.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Okay. Explain it.

does not equal "blow up."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes. They will still do random searches. In addition, there are a lot more profiles out there. What about the caucasian male or female who has a terrorist counterpart, who has hidden a bomb in their stuff. Or a native born caucasian that has been converted to the cause and has cleaned up for the flight? I am sure they have developed profiles for them.

I am sure there is also a militia profile. If you are from rural West Virginia and your eyes are too close together. I don't know. But clearly if you are Black or Asian and from rural West Virginia there is not much of a chance of you being part of a terrorist militia.

When it comes to serial killers it is my understanding they are looking for white males from middle to upper white class families between the ages of twenty and fifty. When there is a serial killer on the loose I want them to work with the profiles they have.

I don't understand the obsession with "profiling." Doesn't everyone agree that the government should pay more attention to people who are more likely to pose a threat and pay less attention to people who are less likely to pose a threat? They don't seem to do this now, and lengthy arguments about what profiles they should be looking for are a diversion from the question of what they should be doing with those profiles.

eta: What Sidd said, too.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
does not equal "blow up."

What word are you referring to? I never thought I'd say this, but you're making less sense than Spanky, and I don't think you're doing it on purpose.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't understand the obsession with "profiling." Doesn't everyone agree that the government should pay more attention to people who are more likely to pose a threat and pay less attention to people who are less likely to pose a threat? They don't seem to do this now, and lengthy arguments about what profiles they should be looking for are a diversion from the question of what they should be doing with those profiles.

they should give everyone a gun as you get on the plane, like you get glasses at Disneyland for the 3-D rides.

You think anyone would start mixing lotions together if we were all taking a bead at them?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
What word are you referring to? I never thought I'd say this, but you're making less sense than Spanky, and I don't think you're doing it on purpose.

hijack. Reid did not try to "hijack" any airplane. He tried to blow one up.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
The risk with all these profiles you've developed is that they either become a simplistic, and too narrow, crutch ("search all Arabs" means "let the shoe bomber through") or they become so broad as to be meaningless (the "drug dealer" profiles the DEA used to have were so broad that pretty much any person flying alone, and some people not flying alone, fit them).

You can say race would be "a factor." But if you believe that everyone of Arab descent should be searched, then race is not "a factor." It is dispositive, at least in one direction.

The other question is one of resources. What % of travellers would have to be searched with this "factor"? Could the TSA handle that -- and still spare the resources to search other people who should be searched, and apply other meaningful security measures?

I do believe that race should be considered, but I don't know how that works in practicality.

Again, no one ever said that it should be the only factor (or the dispositive factor). The issue is where they should be allowed to use race, national origin etc. as one of the factors. Of course they should. The ACLU
doesn't think they should be allowed to.

Of course the height of stupidity would be to not search a certain group at all because they don't fit a profile. You always have to have random searches for everyone. But no one has ever suggested that.

But you can't give everyone that wants to get on the plane an anal cavity search (eventhough Taxwonk thinks that is a good idea)but when deciding how far up the search process you go (going through the bag all the way to all the way up to being thoroughly interrogated by the police in separate room) these people need to be able to use all the tools at their disposal.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't understand the obsession with "profiling." Doesn't everyone agree that the government should pay more attention to people who are more likely to pose a threat and pay less attention to people who are less likely to pose a threat?

The ACLU disagrees. And Taxwonk disagrees.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Spanky
The ACLU disagrees. And Taxwonk disagrees.

Ty gets at neither sticking point. The trouble is not with the concept of profiling. Nor is the trouble with what the profile is (or profiles are) in general. The issue is whether race or ethnicity or national origin should be an element (or the only element) of a profile. That's what the ACLU is bent out of shape about.