[size=4]Screening system ignored nationality[/size=4]
[b]FAA security official slams politically correct profiling used on 9-11[/b]

By Paul Sperry © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – A computerized system used by airlines to screen suspicious passengers failed to expose the 19 Arab hijackers on Sept. 11 [b]because it omits key terrorist-profiling indicators such as [u]national origin[/u], a Federal Aviation Administration security official says.[/b]

If airlines had profiled based on human criteria, he says, the roughly 3,000 Americans who died that day might still be alive.

"If human-profiling was conducted on the terrorists who were made 'selectees' that day, then maybe some or all of this nefarious plot could have been avoided," said the official, who works in the FAA's Aviation Security Division here.

The Computer-Assisted Passenger Profiling System, or CAPPS, selected six hijackers for additional security screening on Sept. 11, because they bought one-way tickets using cash, things that show up as red flags in the system.

[b]But only their checked luggage was searched, authorities say.[/b] The selected passengers themselves weren't searched or even questioned by airport security personnel.

That's because the so-called [b]"Gore commission" on aviation security[/b] last decade ruled out such profiling as discriminatory.

Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations lobbied hard against Arab-profiling at airports, enlisting lawmakers like Rep. [b]David Bonior[/b], a Democrat from a heavily Arab district in Michigan. He, in turn, lobbied FAA Administrator Jane Garvey. The airlines, which handled security at airport terminals, were also reluctant to profile Arabs.

"CAPPS was developed because the airline industry didn't want to do human-profiling," said the FAA official, who wished to remain anonymous. [b]"Yet human-profiling is the single-biggest deterrent against terrorism in the aviation industry."[/b]

CAPPS ignores key terror predictors, he says, such as the nationality, ethnicity, religion, language and even the sex of passengers. Young men of Middle Eastern origin tend to fit the anti-American or anti-Israeli terrorist profile, authorities say.

The computerized system instead flags passengers based on relatively sterile criteria involving the purchase of their tickets. Did they pay cash or credit? How many days in advance of the flight? One-way or round-trip? Are they irregular or frequent fliers?

Of course, such behavior can easily be changed by would-be hijackers to fool the system.

"CAPPS literally makes you a selectee based on how you purchase your ticket," the FAA official said. "It has nothing to do with fighting terrorism, in spite of what the FAA says."

The computer also selects a certain number of passengers by random.

For example, United Airlines Flight 93 passenger Nicole Miller was selected on Sept. 11 to have her checked bags secretly swept. The 21-year-old was heading back home to San Jose, Calif., where she went to college and worked as a waitress at Chili's. Her hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania shortly after take-off from Newark, N.J.

See article at:[url]http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26877[/url]

There, don't you feel better, now?

Eric The(Pollyanna)Hun[>]:)]

You mean to tell me that you think that our safety is more important than not hurting other peoples feelings?? You must be one of those crazy right wing conspirators. To think someone would sincerely imply that racial profiling is ok, just because it is more accurate than our beloved political correctness.

[grenade]

El Al uses it and it works for them.  Simple fact is that while Steve and Mohammed might both blow up a plane, all things being equal Mohammed is more likely to than Steve.  Someone ought to implement that into policy and not give a damn whether it is racial profiling or not.  The benefits are obvious.  Other than pissing the "profiled" off, what's the harm?

Now don't get me wrong, I;d love to bash Gore as much as the next true American, but....

I do NOT beleive we wanna start infringing peoples liberties just because they are LIKE someone who has done something bad.

How 'bout you Irish guys out there? I think some people of Irish descent  have a pretty recent history of doing some pretty nasty stuff, terrorism wise. You wanna be "profiled?"

Or how about all Puerto Ricans? What was that group of PR's that Clinton pardoned? Yup - all PR's must be like them.

Some Somalis killed our soldiers. You may have seen the movie "Black hawk Down?" Yeah, I guess all Somalis are wanting to kill all USGI's.

Germans. They are the worst. It was ONLY 60 years ago they were wanting to be mini-Hitlers. you guys of germanic descent are just too great a risk. You will be profiled.

Them French people - we KNOW they were collaborators with teh Germans. Next time you see a frog - hit 'em in the face for me. Then deport him. He MUST be bad.



Let's just deport all people of French, German, Irish, Puerto Rican, and Somali descent. Oh, and Catholics had a pretty checkered past when it comes to the Inquisition. Them too - out you go baby. No telling what you'll do, cuz after all, other people of your race, creed, color, religion, size, weight, eye color, whatever.


Oh wait, that's right. Silly me. A hate campaign is ONLY politically correct if its against Semitic people who descended from Abraham thru Ishmael.

Hypocrites. You make me [puke]

Can a Mod explain to me WHY this post isn't blatant racism??

And WHY a Mod is being allowed to foment racism on this board???

Garandman I hope you are being sarcastic.

even if they had pulled the terrorists aside, they would have let them on the planes because box cutters were legal at the time, just like "tactical letter openers". profiling arabs wouldn't have saved anyone.

Young middle eastern males are responsible for the majority of the terrorism that occurs in the world.  If we start targeting them they will just recruit old white females or something else.  Hell, the previous article just told anyone who reads it a way to get around the current airline screening process.

What ever happened to people just using their brains and instincts?  These days they'd just be accused of being 'un pc'.  I think I'll go barf now...



SlackO

It isn't racism, garandman. It's [b]reality[/b]. Wake up and smell the semtex. We have to play the percentages, or we're always going to be playing catch up and clean up.

You tell me who is more likely to be planning something evil on board the plane:

1. A twenty-something male with a Saudi passport.

2. An eighty-something male with a Medal of Honor.

If you can't see or make that distinction, you're either fooling yourself or being intentionally obtuse to foster argument.

Where's the racism?

Post from garandman -

I will ignore your next to last post because I can't keep from giggling every time I read it - I know you don't believe what you wrote. You were just trying to be facetious, right?

(God, I hope so!)

'Blatant racism' in this case would be if we had no idea who was responsible for the attack on Sept 11, and we just picked out blacks and Arabs figuring that if any one group may have been responsible for such an attack it just [b]had[/b] to be blacks or Arabs!

[b][u]That[/u] would be 'blatant racism', garandman![/b]

If we know that 19 out of 19 of the identified terrorists were young men of Arab nationality, etc., that the folks who sent them on their mission were of Arab nationality, that the folks who supported them on their mission were of Arab nationality, and that the people who cheered them on, both before and after the attack were of Arab nationality, and that they were all Muslims, then yes, I believe that we should give 'extra scrutiny' to Arab Muslims boarding planes, trains, boats, ferries, and any other mode of common transportation.

We should also profile Arab Muslims at our borders, since that is how they arrived in this country.

And the point of this is that you believe so too! You just want to make what, some sh|||t this morning?

Heh-heh-heh, it's [u]not[/u] going to work!

Gee, garandman, I think you need to speak to the senior staff about this.

Eric The(HaveAtIt!)Hun[>]:)]

I don't think they'll get white females, but if history is any teacher for us, you can look at the French Algerian war.  During that war, the algerians enlisted women to carry their bombs through security checkpoints to get into the French parts of the city.  Women will eventually be used, but who knows if we'll be able to profile them.  Keep in mind that Persian women can have blonde hair and blue eyes.  If they can reqruit them, we're in a world of hurt.

NOT IN THE LEAST.

America is a free and open society, which BY DEFINITION means we are open to some threats that other socialist, totalitarian states are not.

As I showed above, in the last 100 years, people of Irish, German, French and Somali descent are guilty of terrorist actions. YOU WANNA PROFILE ALL PEOPLE OF THESE NATIONAL ORIGINS???

How is this profiling any different than the antis who say ALL gun owners are potential terrorists / criminals / murders because OTHER gun owners have committed such actions??

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?? Forbid it, Almighty God." "He who would surrender essential liberty (the Fourth Amendment - ever heard of it??) for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"

How come these words of liberty and logic apply to the antis who try to paint all gun owners with the wide brush of a Buford Furrow, or a Dylan Klebold, but they DO NOT apply to an ETH or yourself when trying to paint ALL Arabs (US citizens, many of them, mind you) with the wide brush of a Mohammed Atta???

Y'all sound JUST like the anti gin weenies whose safety is supposedly jeopardized by law abiding gun owners, when you whine about your safety supposedly being jeopardized by law abiding Arabs.

Its RACISM, pure and simple. And its weenie Leftist "logic," unmitigated.

[puke]

Post from lurker -

[b]You simply do not know that![/b] Once one of the terrorists was pulled aside, either he or his co-conspirators may have panicked and made a break for it.

Once again, you simply don't know that either!

But the very one thing that we [u]do[/u] know is that [u]not[/u] profiling young Arab men certainly did not stop them from their actions that day, either!

So why chance it? And Richard Reid [u]was[/u] successfully 'profiled' the day before he got on the plane in France. The people doing the profile over there simply dropped the ball!

He couldn't give them a whole lot of info that he should have been able to had his story been true. But it wasn't.

And the French, thinking along with you and garandman, I suppose, simply permitted him to continue on his merry way, in the interests of 'political correctness.'

Eric The(IUnderstandTheFrench,ButYouGuys?)Hun[>]:)]

This is poor logic in tHEh extreme.

To learn something about Arabs, you have pulled a sample of Arabs out of a population KNOWN to be 100% terrorist.

Gee, you enrtire sample of arabs are terrorists. Therfore, all Arabs must be terrorists, and must be profiled.

Apply that to gun owners.

Pull a sample of gun owners out of the prison population.

Gee, 100% of gun owners have committed a crime. Therfore, ALL gun owners must be criminals.

[b]AND NONE OF YOU FRENCH, GERMAN, IRISH FOLKS HAVE ADDRESSED YOUR TERRORIST PAST, AND EXPLAINED WHY **** YOU ***** SHOULDN'T BE PROFILED.[/b]

That's an illegitimate comparison.

Try this one:

1. A twenty-something male with a Saudi passport.

2. A twenty-something male with a Irish passport.


Both have an equal likelihood of being involved in terrorist organizations. Both have an equal chance of having committed terrorist actions.

Further that with the reality that we KNOW that NOT ALL the al Queda are of Arab descent. The al Queda went looking for ANY nationality that has a beef with America, which are many. Pakistani, British among them. Why not IRA members??? Why not???

But ODDLY, only one of the two above inspires the ire of some here. Which presents two possibilities:

1. Either the profiling recommendation is short-sighted in the extreme, or

2. Some people want to make ALL Arabs pay for the sins of a few.

And THAT is racism.

Post from garandman -

No, not at all, but [u]you[/u] certainly do sound like them this morning. They are nothing if not politically correct!

No one has anything to fear from law-abiding Arabs, so long as the 'law' they are abiding by is Anglo-American in its origination.

Nope. It's not, and you, just as much as anyone, should know that what you've just said is pure BS!

It's a terrible thing to hate Israel so much that it blinds you to who the 'real enemies' are, not Arabs, not Muslims, not even the Muslim fundamentalists, but those who have used their 'Arab Muslim fundamentalism' as a basis to (1) attack Israel, and (2) attack the US!

And [b]if[/b] we were still at war with Nazi Germany, and they were still sending over spies and saboteurs to the United States, I would not mind for one minute having to step out of line for closer scrutiny simply because I'm blond and have piercing blue eyes (so Miz Hun and others have told me!).

And the US authorities would not be the folks that I would blame for any inconvenience that either I or my family suffered because of this closer scrutiny - it would be the a$$holes back in Berlin that were responsible!

[b]It's called patriotism. Learn it, love it, live it![/b]

Eric The(Don'tJustQuoteIt)Hun[>]:)]

I'm a 3rd generation immigrant from Germany,(whatever that means) I took German in High School, I even have a German sounding last name.  If you want to profile me, than have at it.  I don't mind.  
I am pretty confident that you will find [b]ZERO[/b] evidence of any Jew hating.  Unlike yourself, I actually fully support the Jews.

Drug dealers are predominately black.
Skinheads are predominately white.
Ninjas are predominately oriental.
Horses are predominately skittish.
Liberals are predominately stupid.
Settlers were predominately killed by Indians.
Anti-American terrorist plane hi-jackers are predominately Arab.

If you have a problem with this, then check your head.

Perhaps, but the Irish guy is not likely to blow up an American plane any more than the Saudi is likely to blow up a Kuwaiti plane because he hates America.

Who is more likely to be a terrorist against US citizens?  The answer is very clear to honest minds.

Post from garandman -

That is pure BS! When's the last time that a twenty-something Irish male has carried out a terrorist action against the United States on an airplane or at an airport in our country?

Hmmmm, got to go back pretty far, eh?[:D]

Sorta like your German comparisons, too?

Eric The(Germanic)Hun[>]:)]

When the waterbuffalo fight, the small animals get trampled....

Aviator  [img]www.milpubs.com/aviator.gif[/img]

Since 9/11 I've heard it reported that about 3% of all Muslims - not just Arabs - are what we need to fear.

3% is a heck-of-a of a large group but that still leaves the 97%.

Permit me to address this point.


Here in America we have a fundamental principle of NOT allowing our gov't to punish people until AFTER they have committed AND BEEN CONVICTED of a crime. Yes, even this fundamental principle is under attack by teh Leftists, but its still something we cherish.

The catchy phrase we use is "Innocent until proven guilty."

NOT "innocent until charged with a crime" or even....

"innocent until we figure out what nationality you are."

YES that means we expose ourselves to greater dangers that countries who don't care about these fundamental liberties.

But still, "innocent" means NO gov't repercussions, no restriction of liberties, no infringment of rights to be secure in your person, or from unreasonable search and seizure.

What if a study found at a certain Marine base it was found an unusually high number of Marines had committed rape? Should ALL Marines in the entire country, as well as retired marines be profiled, interrogated, lumped together as rapists?? It gets a little different when it YOUR bacon in the fire, don't it???

NO. We shouldn't punish all Marines.  We punish INDIVIDUALS, NOT groups, for the crimes of the individual.

I know you know all this, it just seems you are pushing it aside for the momentary enemy, a few thousand Arabs out of a population of tens of millions.

Unfortunately, that's the comparison that [b]is[/b] being made. Didn't you read the story that was posted on here a couple of weeks ago about General Joe Foss, five-time ace of WWII, who was hassled by the mouthbreathing idiots at some airport "security" screening about his Medal of Honor. He had the actual medal with him because he was traveling to give some speech, and it had been requested of him that he bring the medal with him.


No problem. All foreign nationals ought to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb.


Who has a greater likelihood of bearing animus against the USA? Oh, that's where your selection process shows its inherent weakness.


Islam is a religion that is just as happy to spread by the sword (violence and bloody conquest) as by the tongue (preaching the word), therefore, some extra attention should be paid to those who espouse it.

Don't tell me about the Inquisition and how Catholics ought to be subject to the same attention. You're your anti-Catholic bias is well known. Of course, if I recall correctly, the last time anyone was tortured by the Catholic Church was in Europe and 800 years ago. Consider the beam in your eye (witch burnings), before you point out the mote in mine.

"THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"

IF I have this right, any person within our borders is afforded equal opportunity under the constitution.

Is the above correct ??  (I'm not trying to address whether this is right or wrong just whether nor the statement is correct.)

I would like to point out the difference in a gun "owner" and a gun "possesor", as a large percentage of firearms used to commit a crime are stolen or of the rather cheap "SNS" type, and I would hardly characterize these circumstances as ownership.

-  Garandman.

Nobody said that.  Except you.  The point is not that they are all terrorists.  The point is they are *more likely* to be terrorists than non-Arabs.  Greater scrutiny therefore is appropriate.  And other than greater inconvenience to the person profiled, what's the cost?  The profiled person isn't imprisoned.  Only checked a bit more closely.  So what?

Your examples don't fly today, but they might have at one time.  Japanese people should have been profiled during WWII (and no, not placed in camps, so don't put words in my mouth and those in the camps were Americans, not Japanese anyway).  So should have Germans.  Why?  Because they are people from an enemy power with greater potential to be a threat than some non-German or non-Japanese.  

Why is that concept so tough for people to swallow?

YES  !!  And here is where we need a very sophisticated ID card - for foreign nationals.

Guess what? When two Marines and a sailor raped an Okinawan girl in 1995, all Marines there [b]were[/b] under suspicion. We didn't curse the Okinawans though. We accepted it as a natural result of the heinous nature of the offense, and did our best to prove that those scumbags were the exception rather than the rule.

I haven't heard any kind of long, loud and strenuous repudiation of Wahabbism, Osama bin Laden or the Death to America crowd from the vast majority of muslim clerics in America, let alone the Americans of Arab descent or Arabs worldwide. They're not making any effort to get out in front and show the world that the scum who killed thousands on 09.11.01 and hundreds on the USS Cole, and hundreds in the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and tens in the Khobar Towers bombings....were exceptions rather than the rule.

No, we get CAIR and other special interest Arab groups screaming that anytime anyone looks askance at someone in a hijab it's genocide. Too bad.

What is a terrible thing is when someone is losing the debate on points, they have to SLANDER their debate opponent. Kinda like with Jesse Jackson and racism, everything boils down with you to "Israel hate."

And where does Israel even fit into this debate? I've said NOTHING that reflects either positively or negatively re: Israel in this thread.

And perhaps at the BRC you can explain to me WHY I should not take your INCESSANT claims against me of anti-Semitism, "Jew hater" nazi sympathizer personally. Its HARD to remian friends with someone who CONTINUALLY attacks your reputation. You DO wish to remain friends, do you not???






So, if "those who have used their 'Arab Muslim fundamentalism' as a basis to (1) attack Israel, and (2) attack the US! " are the "real enemy" why do you want to profile [b]ALL [/b]Arabs??? If Arabs who don't use their fundamentalism aren't the "real enemy" why are you treating them as such??

And I think its a bit more than a Freudian slip that Israeli attack gets higher billing in your post than an American attack. Sometimes, these profound little truths just slip out of us. [}:D]

Just out of curiosity:


You realize that by making that your signature line, you include those expletives in every post you make, right?

Wouldn't a better way to express this thought be:
"Can YOU make a cogent argument WITHOUT expletives??"

which brings us to the real issue, presumption of guilt, or of innocence. the system we're trying to protect presumes innocence until proven otherwise. you apparently prefer to presume a man guilty with no evidence, because of the way he looks.

how about we arrest [b]YOU[/b] because you own guns and [b]MIGHT[/b] shoot someone? or because you have some [b]FRENCH[/b] blood?

Actually, my point was EXACTLY the opposite of what you insinuate.

I was illustrating how groups should NOT be punished for the actions of individuals, whether it be Arabs who have NO connection to al Queda, or Catholics who have NO connection to the acts that occurred 800 years ago.

My point was that punishing the whole due to the sins of the few is the TYPE of slippery slope that would lead to punishing Catholics for the Inquisition, or cause Puritans to burn innocent people at the stake, due to sterotypes and fear-mongering.

And this desire to profile ALL Arabs is little more than stereotyping and fear-mongering IMO.


See??

I'm curious about how the Garandman Security Company would screen passengers if it were in charge of airport security.

Is there some useful criterion for determining who is or isn't likely to be an anti-American terrorist that's being overlooked?

a good point. maybe something about carrying items that give the capability to destroy or sieze an aircraft, no matter what your alleged intentions?

Post from garandman -

Losing [u]this[/u] debate? Not even likely, garandman, take a quick look around! Where are DaMan and robino now that you need them to buttress your tripe?

It [u]must[/u] be the single reason that you defend Arab fundamentalist terrorists so much.

No, what you were engaging in is moral equivalence.

Catholics of today categorically reject and repudiate the Inquisition.

Where is the outpouring from the Arab or Muslim world against the actions and beliefs of the 09.01.11 terrorists?

Their silence is deafening.

OK, lemme borrow your logic.

Gun owners are "more likely" to commit a crime with a gun than non-gun owners (I would even contend INFINITELY more likely)

In your opinion, is  " Greater scrutiny" for  gun owners therefore "appropriate?"

USPC40 -

Let's just boil it down to "Those who have ready access to firearms."

Jarhead -

When ALL Marines came under suspicion for the Okinawa rape, that was WRONG. just as this is WRONG.




Oh, so it USED TO BE "hates Israel" but now its "dislikes" with the disclaimer "as far as you can tell?"


Nice backpeddal. And trying to associate me with ANY other poster on this board is a cheap shot. My ideas are my own. I take no support from others, and I borrow nothing from them.

To try to say you aren't accusing me of being a "Jew hater" and then try to associate me with peopel you have said are "Jew haters" and ALSO yourself saying I "hate Jews" is a load of crap ETH.

Quit being the lawyer, and simply apologize for what you KNOW was wrong to do.

re: the Garandman Security Compamy:

Profile INDIVIDUALS based on their INDIVIDUAL actions. Is that really a hard concept???

Allow concealed carry by pilots, and a federal concealed carry by passengers. Give them $1,00 if they shoot someone trying to take over an airplane.

People who fly know the risks, and they need to act like adults. NOT expect the gov't to infringe on the liberties of others just so they can FEEL safer. That's the mush mentality of the gun banners.

But how would you find those items?

To detect weapons like non-metallic knives, you'd have to perform an extensive search on every passenger, which would be very time-consuming and expensive (because of the manpower needed) for the security company and very annonying for the passengers.  Even then, you might miss something like a shoe bomb or a cologne bottle full of nerve gas.

And even if advanced technology gave you the ability to be 100% effective in screening for weapons, there would still be the potential for a sufficiently large number of unarmed terrorists to skyjack or down a plane with improvised weapons obtained after boarding.  

Exactly what sort of individual actions would you use to pick out the terrorists?  

Post from lurker -

What have I missed? Are there summary executions being carried out at the airports in the US? Are there detention camps here? Is every suspicious Arab passenger being sent to Gitmo for interrogation?

Quite so, [b]in a court of law[/b] being tried for a [b]criminal offense[/b] punishable by a term of incarceration!

Remove any of those items, and there simply is no 'presumption of innocence'!

Did OJ kill Nicole? Who says? See what I mean.

Guilty? No, not at all. Subject to closer scrutiny, hell yes!

Just like if there were a 7 foot red haired white boy who running around your town raping women. If I just happened to be a 7 foot red haired white boy, I would certainly expect to be questioned a lot by the authorities.

And if some pinhead asked the cops if they had questioned me, and their response was, no, we don't have any reason to suspect [u]that[/u] 7 foot red haired white boy, just because he's a 7 foot red haired white boy, then I would think that the Police Department would soon be the laughing stock of the community.

Were it a laughing matter. But it's not, and neither is the security of our country!

Arrest? See, [b]lurker[/b], how you go overboard on this? No one is being arrested at the airport that I know of, do you have any information on this?

[i][b]Sacre' bleu, mais non! Je suis anglais et allemand![/b][/i]

Eric The(Teutonic)Hun[>]:)]

Do they not check to verify that you still have the right to own a firearm before selling yyou one at a gunshop/sportinggoods store? I thought that was the general idea behind that little yellow form, to further scrutinize the intended purchaser of a firearm.

It is yellow, or am I imagining things?

hello all from brazil....G-Man----ya know sometimes buddy we agree....but you ain't going to convince this crowd....they have been watching " The minute of Hate" on TV.
They KNOW who the real enemy is...Big Brother told them....give up on this and fight one that
is not already lost....

I know what I said, and meant. I can't be held accountable for your misreading of what I said and meant.

Yes, I do find to blaming all Arabs for the actions of a few Arabs to be  morally equivalent with blaming all Catholics with the actions of a few Catholics. BOTH being morally wrong. I'm not sure how much clearer I can be about that.



Catholics today consider the Popes responsible for the Inquisition to be the vicars of Christ, and infallible in their actions as pertaining church function.

Obviously Catholics today find the specific actions of the Inquisition to he reprehensible, but are caught in a conundrum by church doctrine re: the Pope. FULL repudiation would mean a repudiation of those Popes - which has NOT happened.

Arabs who live in those countries, if they did disagree with the actions of OSama, would face the same punishment that Mao and Stalin gave dissenters in communist China and Russia.

Its not like these Arabs are in a free country, where they can express their opinions, or EVEN HAVE ACCESS TO THE TRUTH ABOUT SEPT.11 or THE ACTIONS OF OSAMA, SADDAM et al.

Can you blame them for what they are PROHIBITED from knowing, and would be killed for knowing?

Sure you can. But it DOES explain the "silence."

Post from garandman -

Fudge you, boy![:D]

[u]You're[/u] the one who brought up 'blatant racism' in this thread!

That didn't bother me a lick! 'Cause I'm not.
But when someone questions [u]your[/u] orientation, whew! you go off the deep end!

There's an old Arab saying that covers this. In the Middle East if you throw a rock into a pack of dogs and one of the dogs barks, how can you know which dog barked?

The Arab answer? 'The struck dog barks.'

Pretty good saying, eh?

Well you barked pretty loudly!

Eric The(Tired)Hun[>]:)]

How difficult is it for you to see G-man, that nobody here is blaming all Arabs, but rather using a little commonsense and saying that they should be looked at more closely due to an increased liklihood. Not jailed, not beaten, not even cussed at, just taken at face value (as that is all that is readily available). There is a greater risk of an individual of Arab descent committing an act of terror agains the US, and it's citizens than any other group at this point. When the Irish decide we are the enemy, we will look at them differently too. But not without reason for suspicion, which we sadly have in this case.

For one, open association with groups known to fund terrorism, or commit terrorist acts.

But that is an aside. What I am hearing in this forum is "Gee, you're dark-skinned. Let's shine a bright light in your face, assume you must be guilty of something cuz of the actions of other dark-skinned people, and beat you with a rubber hose till you confess."

Of course, that's an exaggeration, but I sense  bloodlust here. Which is understandable, IF its directed at the right targets.

Retribution is EASY if we blame and punish all Arabs, but its RIGHT if we ONLY punish the guilty.

Did I miss the part about us shoving bamboo chutes under their fingernails??

You mean that hasn't happened, the rubber hose either??

What the hell are you rambling about??

So if I'm Joe Blow, airport security guard, and you walk up to my checkpoint with a ticket, how am I supposed to know whether or not you've been associating with "suspicious" groups?  Should I expect you to confess if I ask you about any links to terrorists?  Should I look to see if you're wearing an "Al-Quaeda Terror Camp" T-shirt?

Or am I going to trust that you aren't using a fake ID when I enter your name into a database of possible terrorists?