AlexCrowley

The liberal intellectuals on each coast thanks our slightly less intelligent and more warlike midwest and southern population for fighting a war for us. While we on the educated, more metropolitan side of things find your nationalism both repellent yet somehow cute in folk-art sort of way, we understand that you may be misunderstanding how things are. We make far more money than you because we have a higher level of education. You are bred to work for us. In times when we need to blow people up we send YOU to fight, kill and die for us. In return we pay larger taxes that is redistributed to our slightly less intelligent and unskilled neighbors. Thats right, the Blue states fund the Red states - why? because we have the brains and you have the brawn. Us 'liberals' merely take that stance because we can use our brains to assimilate facts rather than knee jerk 'kill them all' reactions. Thats why the educated on the coasts are ambassadors and most of you are grunts or members of the 101st keyboard commando unit. We thank you for your blinded propoganda, your inability to comprehend historical events realistically, your incredible lack of introspection and your small-town perspective. We applaud your talents to go off half-cocked against any "enemy" we can build up in your mind as being worthy of your hatred, without even pausing. Every society needs it's leaders, it's thinkers and it's raw muscle. We fulfill the first two roles for you. We thank you for blindly answering the call for any grunt work that needs doing. We thank you for not asking 'why?' or 'how?', only 'where?' and 'when?'. Without you we could not make sure America stays great. So my muscular, yet not quite as intelligent friends, crack open another beer and God Bless America, there's killing to be done and it certainly isnt going to be the us - the educated, wealthy, liberal middle classes that are going to die for the oil for our SUVs, it's going to be you. [Sorry, I just wanted to see what writing a divisive, inflammatory left/right post would feel like - I'd like to thank everyone on the forum for posting enough examples that I could put this one together. I apologize for any actual factual content within this post. That thing about the taxes might have been a little below the belt ] TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Walt, if I say 'your mother is a whore' and 'the earth is flat', which would you be more likely to get offended by? TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Thanks for the responses. It's a nice change from tech gear being out of service the second you resell it. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

yup. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

We share something in common, I get weirded out by the 'bomb the fuck out of anything that dont talk American' types. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

My apologies if someone has asked this question previously. I'm a first time buyer, hoping to buy used. What are vendors and manufacturers approaches to customer support if you're not the original purchaser. The rig I'm hoping for is recent, barely used and includes: infinity container, performance designs canopies, cypres AAD. Coming from less customer friendly industries (music and technology) it is somewhat of a concern over the long term. Thanks in advance. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

You're absolutely right. HOW DARE YOU ALL USE YOUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH LIKE THAT!!!! What a disgrace. You will blindly follow what your leadership tells you to think. Clay, you made a personal choice to become involved, and for that many will praise you and some will villify you. I really dont give a shit either way, it's your life to do with as you please. There's a reason the British army avoided hanging out with the Americans during the first year of the occupation of Iraq, and you hint at it in your post. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Heh heh heh. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Hmmm anti-war anti-american socialist liberal Only in the US of A could these be considered negatives. I could go on, quoting facts and figures and explain things, but like a good extremist islamic terrorist you guys on the right have your own killing ideologies that blind you to an alternative answer. Yup, I said : Like good Islamic terrorists you guys have your own killing ideologies that blind you to any alternative answers. And you sit there and wonder how we got into this mess? and why do they hate us? I dont believe it's about 'our freedoms' its about our hatred, our ignorance, our blindness. It's also about theirs. To the extremists its about religion. ON BOTH SIDES OF THE EQUATION. To everyone else its about righting injustices that were done to them. Yes, Im anti-war and liberal on human rights and conservative on other things. And this makes me different from most human beings how? As new to the country I perhaps misundestood. The revolutionary war was fought against: a) an invading army b) an occupying force c) the official governing party Now, like I said, I'm an alien here, but it was my undertanding that until the taxes started to get hiked up everyone was pretty happy. Perhaps Im confused, but checking out basic history it seems that some anti-american feeling was going on for a few years before it got bloody. Those same colonists led directly to the revolution and independence, the first patriots. Urm Ok, so anti-american is a good thing or a bad thing? The name changes but does the lesson? Ok, so I'm anti-unfair-decisions-made-by-official-leadership.........ergo, I am Anti-American and a true patriot. Perhaps I value American ideals more because they are what drew me to this country, rather than being born here and viewing them with a lethargic sort of apathy that leads to jingoistic nationalism. Already copped to being liberal. Not exactly a socialist, even for me it's a dirty word. Jesus, however, now HE was a socialist. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_economy/526954.stm Given that we import so much from China it's doubtful. Chinese workforce makes most of your Walmarttargetkmart bought clothing. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0630/p17s01-cogn.html "China's foreign direct investments are so far chicken feed compared to those of the US...................in the past four years, China has sunk at least $11 billion into foreign plants, offices, and firms. Perhaps some Hong Kong money should be added to that total. Hong Kong, now part of China, made $39.7 billion of foreign direct investment last year, and $24.3 billion over the previous three years combined. Some of that investment may be money from China's mainland escaping government attention. The US, though, has invested almost $700 billion abroad in those four years. "That's a completely different magnitude," says Hans Christiansen, an expert at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the club of mostly industrial nations based in Paris The $19 billion bid by China National Offshore Oil Corp. for Unocal is not only China's biggest overseas move yet. It also has what Mr. Christiansen calls "an element of strategic investment." China has been making smaller investments around the world in minerals, coal and other hydrocarbons, agriculture, and fisheries. Nonetheless, to Albert Keidel, China's Unocal bid is "a minor blip that gets more PR noise than it deserves." As the senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace sees it, as long as China plays by global investment rules, it should be eligible to compete with Chevron for Unocal." TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

What's weirder is that there are a lot of AK-47 inspired designs and ripoffs out there, and have been for years and I've not heard about Mr K getting upset. The Times story may shed a little more light as it seems that its Gov sponsored large scale cloning, which would upset me. BG's an idiot, a very very rich idiot, but from day one (his version of Basic) he's been a money grubbing dope who seems to have some real issues regarding property and ownership, maybe the kids at school kept taking his lunch money. Do weapons patents work internationally? Is russias patent system more insane than the US version? (my god, I could yammer on about that more than people talk about muslims here). Kill Mickey Mouse. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Funny you should say that. I remember the first time I watched the 700 Club that my jaw hit the floor when the good Rev, while praying, started talking about bombing people and going to war. While I can somewhat stomach the whole 'God bless America' when it comes to war (which most Xtian countries do), hearing it within a prayer made me wonder WTF kind of christianity was practiced here. I realize that the TV evangelists are considered a joke by most USians, but thats cos you're on the inside. Lets see : Religious leaders publicly calling for violence: Check Political leaders publicly referring to violence, religion and using moral justification: Check Long history of violence: check Publicly silent moderate religious majority: check International acts of "terrorism" (according to your ideology): check Urm. Which country am I talking about again? TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

What most brits fail to realize is the following basic law: When looking at gun statistics: US deaths by firearms in 2002 (inc suicide) 30,242 UK INJURIES* caused by firearms in 2002 747 But there is no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it and not having a gun and not shooting someone with it, and you'd be a fool and a communist to suggest one.+ * Includes being used as blunt object. Stat excludes air rifles or imitation weapons. +Bill Hicks. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

http://www.ak-47.us/USmade.php http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30A10FE3E590C758EDDAE0894DC404482 TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

On this forum everyone can be anti-semetic and hate filled when discussing the semetic races except when talking about the Jews? Edited to add that I think the original poster is insane. :) Edited to add that I would be refering to Eaglenrider, not Michele. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Racism is accepted on this forum as long as it's aimed at arabs and muslims, under the guise of discussing terrorism. People are very good at making generalizations that they dont have the mental acuity to realize would be read as insulting to anyone who might be part of that race or religion. None of them will accept that they're racists though. In the US racism is as much a part of life as breathing, most people have an inbred hatred of some - most seem to hate Mexicans for being lazy and dirty - at least thats what I've been told when I ask. Others hate Jews. Each time the person feels totally justified, it's not racism "its what i've experienced". So hearing Americans talk about muslims and arabs and hear the bloodlust and the 'bomb them all' and 'acceptable losses' and 'profile them all' and 'they should police their own'. That last one, its normal, people in the US hear that I'm from the UK and ask if I know their friend Bob who lives in Leeds (yeah, all us Brits know each other). Racism is a way of life, they dont even see it. The same way they dont see how much fear their is in american society, or the fact that their wars are so anaemic that they just look like teenagers video games. God forbid they'd have to face the blood, piss, shit, limbs, torn and burnt flesh and smoke that a real war brings about. Forget about the fact that the prison scandel here was totally ignored, minimized by a press that shoudl have pushed for the rest of the evidence to be released, evidence that Rumsfield himself said was 'shocking and evil'. Americans dont want to know. Americans like to be stupid, they love their ignorance. Dont fuck with their fuel prices, their big macs and their fat stomachs, their own money and they'll happily sit there and ignore everything else if you tell them to and give them another hamburger to feed their fat little kids and their fat boring wives. Just dont show them anything real ever. American life is very very small, rarely any larger than just outside of an americans small dreams. Dont challenge their world view. American ideology is as set and strict, and as unwavering as their crazy muslim counterparts. Challenge it and be ignored, insulted or minimized. What I dont understand is how people in the US haven't worked out that OBL wants a race war. That the entire crux of his actions, every explosion, every murder, every death is to set white against arab. But that would mean independent thought. easier to believe fairy tales like 'they envy our freedoms' and 'god bless america'. Generalizations suck, dont they. Watch the defence step forward, it'll be the following: 1. it's not racism, muslim terrorists are a HUGE (yet amazingly unquantified) threat. 2. Yeah, sure, its all the white guys fault, again. 3. You are politically correct, we're not the bad guys ever. 4. ??????? Face it America, your emotions have caused you to embrace racism and hate and justified it as righteous indignation. Until you can see that there can never be a rational discussion about the problem because you are blinded by your own prejudices. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

It is always difficult to class someone's "only motivation" as "money." Absolutely, there are other important considerations like: Job satisfaction Benefits Career advancement TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

I think if you keep your rates reasonable it's ok. Its when you start charging more than the target is worth that it ceases to be ok and starts to become extortionate. Of course, if someone is skilled enough they can demand a much higher rate than the local hack who's just going to take a few pot shots from 100 yds away and not even check that they got their mark. I've found marketing to be difficult, its a tough to find a target demographic......(a little professional humor there...heh heh). TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

When I'm approached to secure a business my answer to 'can you make us totally secure?' is 'sure, with an unlimited budget and unlimited resources'. Security is always a series of tradeoffs. As security specialists in any field we collect data, and like the insurance guys, we come up with numerical models that fit previous known behavior. We draw that info from as wide a source as possible, and then tailor it to fit the customer. The level of security I can provide for $5k is very different when dealing with a customer who has in-house systems people and a real security budget. If security could check all 3 of them (viper and two arabs) then you're checking everyone - something you can't afford to do. Checking every 3rd passenger obviously makes for an easy system to compromise. Perhaps that day they had a tip about white surpremacists plotting an attacks that day and were looking for white guys with buzzcuts who had a military bearing. I know in the UK the security teams have a quota plus a specific profile each day, sometimes based on intelligence, sometimes based on random luck (redhaired men over 6' travelling with children). My simple point being: hysteria about arabs is both racist and totally myopic. The idea of security is to secure against ALL threats, not just ones on the late night news. Imagine me as the twinkie terrorist, just one guy. I decide that I am going to release Twinkies on a plane and cause hypoglycemia to the passengers in an uneffective terror attack. The following is just me, no additional funds, no help except whats stated. 1. Bribe or become one of the cleaning crew - where doesnt matter, I just want to twinkie a commercial plane. Place twinkies behind fire extinguisher and in medical kit, under chairs etc. (traditional method of getting weaponry on board commercial aircraft). ($20 in twinkies, paid back by cleaning crew pay) 2. Using what I already know: 'borrow' someones identity (trivial, identity set up in 2 months w/SSN and Drivers license.) (free, it's stupidly easy to steal someones identity) 3. Gain mil ID, forge it - not so trivial as I dont have these skills, but have enough contacts to generate something that would pass most visual checks, would take a month or so and moderate cash investment. ($5 - $10k for solid forgery) 4. http://bdu.com/ (or elsewhere) gets me uniform. ($200?) 5. Get on plane. half way through flight forcefeed twinkies to cabin staff and passengers. (price of flight) My point being, its so easy to do this stuff that educated security crews will not take anyone at face value. The pissed off looking Military guy with the buzzcut may not be a military guy at all and just some psycho who wants to feed everyone twinkies. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

"I just think that when, for instance, you're on a flight and 8 young, Arab males get on, and all take suspcious turns going into the front lavatory...yeah, I'd be very suspicious, and that's racial profiling." Which seems very different than: "It sucks for all the innocent Arabs, especially the younger male population, but it needs to be done. They're the ones who have committed the majority of terrorism, that's why we need to watch them closer." Your most recent example is a perfect example of when profiling is warranted. But I think you're clouding the issue: 8 [insert commonality] using the bathroom in turn and acting suspiciously is damn good reason to pay attention, arab or not. But thats different than you're initial statement which doesnt bear resemblence to the reality. Lets use the State Departments list instead of a Jewish organizations: http://www.globalspecialoperations.com/terchron.html Not so cut and dried. The whole 'majority of terrorism' is BULLSHIT. No matter how many ways you cut it it is not the majority of terrorism historically, or even in the modern day. Unless you only define terrorism as 'violent acts committed by Muslim extremists'. Just because the media has consistently pushed evil as a sweaty bearded muslim screaming 'praise to allah' it doesnt make it true. In this, or any recent conversation regarding Islamic terrorism there has not been one person who is able to quantify Islamic terrorism vs any other form of terrorism anywhere else in the world. There is not one person who has looked at the various terrorism reports compiled by the CIA and other intelligence agencies around the world to provide any real info on the numbers of Islamic terrorists in the world, or even the number of groups considered 'extreme'. No one has challenged the following numbers rationally: Al Quaida is considered officially active as a terrorist group from 1998. Which is when the numbers I quoted above started. From http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/violence/history_extreme.asp... There are over 40 cases of domestic terrorism on Abortion clinics and providers since January of 1998. Thats just one issue, nothing about racist motivated attacks and murders, nothing about homophobic attacks (even church burnings because they accept gay congregations...check for a link in a previous thread). Remember, the FBI classifies hate crimes and hate groups as Domestic terrorism. Feel free to attack me all you want, or how you perceive my politics, but the numbers do not add up if you are trying to prove that terrorism is mostly performed by extremist arab muslims. Although I'm sure that Bin Laden would thank you for helping his cause. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Actually they did ignore it in Boston, check out the link above which links to the Pullitzer Prize winning exposes written by the Boston Globe, and shows how the Boston Diocese ignored the issue for decades. From the article: "When the Rev. James Porter abuse cases became public in the early 1990s, and again in January 2002 when the Globe revealed the extent of Rev. John Geoghan's abusive behavior, Cardinal Bernard F. Law characterized these as isolated incidents. But as documents started flowing from the church in 2002 and more alleged victims came forward, it soon became clear that clergy abuse was, in fact, a systemic problem in the Boston Archdiocese, involving scores of priests and hundreds of victims across the metropolitan area. For decades church leaders kept horrific tales of abuse out of the public eye through an elaborate culture of secrecy, decepetion, and intimidation. Victims who came forward with abuse claims were ignored or paid off, while accused priests were quietly transferred from parish to parish or sent for brief periods of psychological counseling. " TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

Actually in Boston they knew exactly what the priests were doing yet Cardinal Law just put them in other parishes where they did it again, thats what the scandal was about. Read about it here: http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/ Powerful? The most popular is Islam, followed by Catholicism. I can't argue about who's god is most powerful. This is a red-herring argument Steel, you bought up Catholicism to argue that it was monolithic with a central authority. As someone with a Catholic yet not Roman catholic wife I mentioned other forms of Catholicism. Even if we concede Roman Catholicism is monolithic and not a good comparison to a decentralized Islam you have to agree that ALL Christian Sects are decended from Roman Catholicism and therefor all Christianity and its diversity == Islam and its various sects. Actually they dont, they have a Patriach, Oriental Orthodox Catholics have their own Pope. Being married to someone with a Maronite background I always think of other Catholic sects unless stated specifically. Again, Ad Ignorantum is not an excuse, just because you didnt know does not make it not exist. Popularity does not make your statement any more accurate, you made a statement that was not true. Millions of people think Marconi invented the radio, that does not make it true. No it isnt. Is this why you keep altering your argument each time you're caught on an inaccuracy or outright fallacy? So far you've been inaccurate about islam, arabs, the IRA, the catholic church - its funding and structure, and most recently the Greek Pope and Catholicism being the most powerful religion. Are you accusing the people who have corrected your errors as attempting to perform the BIG LIE technique on your posts? Keep up the great work!! TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

I was echoing your 'narrow profiling' statement and just used numbers. My point isnt about bodycount, it's about maintaining awareness and accurate risk assessment. There's way too much anti-arab hysteria that too many people feel is justified. The problem is that the numbers do not add up. Racism is never justified, no matter how emotionally charged the topic may be. In the end it does nothing but hurt us, and give the terrorists exactly what they want - which is a clear battle line of muslim vs christian, white vs arab. Personally I like knowing that the extremists are a small fraction of a percentage of the entire Muslim population. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

I think the whole point of the article can be summed up thusly: "The trick here is to make sure perceptions of risk match the actual risks. If those responsible for security profile based on superstition and wrong-headed intuition, or by blindly following a computerized profiling system, profiling won’t work at all. And even worse, it actually can reduce security by blinding people to the real threats. Institutionalized profiling can ossify a mind, and a person’s mind is the most important security countermeasure we have. " - From the article. The main issue is that there is so much blind superstition and wrong-headed intuition going on by people is the danger. Lets look at some facts: Terrorist: n One that engages in acts or an act of terrorism. Terrorism: adj characteristic of someone who employs terrorism (especially as a political weapon); "terrorist activity"; "terrorist state" n : a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities The Terror scorecard: Muslim extremist attacks on american soil: 9/11, WTC bombing 1993, USS Cole, US embassy bombings (3) in 98. Please add to this list, but I make that 6 attacks. American Terrorist acts on American soil: Oklahoma, Olympic, Unabomber (23 bombs )(http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/serial-killers/unabomer/), over 213 arsons or bombings of abortion clinics, 10 fatal shootings of abortion doctors. so, it would seem to me that white guys, especailly christians would be worth profiling. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

The following article is written by security expert Bruce Schneier, author of several bestselling books on the topic of security, including 'Applied Cryptography' and 'Secrets and Lies'. The following is an exerpt of 'Beyond Fear' in which he discusses the pros and cons of profiling, and why racial profiling is ineffective. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/profiling.html Good security has people in charge. People are resilient. People can improvise. People can be creative. People can develop on-the-spot solutions. People can detect attackers who cheat, and can attempt to maintain security despite the cheating. People can detect passive failures and attempt to recover. People are the strongest point in a security process. When a security system succeeds in the face of a new or coordinated or devastating attack, it’s usually due to the efforts of people. On 14 December 1999, Ahmed Ressam tried to enter the U.S. by ferryboat from Victoria Island, British Columbia. In the trunk of his car, he had a suitcase bomb. His plan was to drive to Los Angeles International Airport, put his suitcase on a luggage cart in the terminal, set the timer, and then leave. The plan would have worked had someone not been vigilant. Ressam had to clear customs before boarding the ferry. He had fake ID, in the name of Benni Antoine Noris, and the computer cleared him based on this ID. He was allowed to go through after a routine check of his car’s trunk, even though he was wanted by the Canadian police. On the other side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, at Port Angeles, Washington, Ressam was approached by U.S. customs agent Diana Dean, who asked some routine questions and then decided that he looked suspicious. He was fidgeting, sweaty, and jittery. He avoided eye contact. In Dean’s own words, he was acting “hinky.” More questioning­there was no one else crossing the border, so two other agents got involved--and more hinky behavior. Ressam’s car was eventually searched, and he was finally discovered and captured. It wasn’t any one thing that tipped Dean off; it was everything encompassed in the slang term “hinky.” But the system worked. The reason there wasn’t a bombing at LAX around Christmas in 1999 was because a knowledgeable person was in charge of security and paying attention. There’s a dirty word for what Dean did that chilly afternoon in December, and it’s profiling. Everyone does it all the time. When you see someone lurking in a dark alley and change your direction to avoid him, you’re profiling. When a storeowner sees someone furtively looking around as she fiddles inside her jacket, that storeowner is profiling. People profile based on someone’s dress, mannerisms, tone of voice ... and yes, also on their race and ethnicity. When you see someone running toward you on the street with a bloody ax, you don't know for sure that he’s a crazed ax murderer. Perhaps he’s a butcher who’s actually running after the person next to you to give her the change she forgot. But you’re going to make a guess one way or another. That guess is an example of profiling. To profile is to generalize. It’s taking characteristics of a population and applying them to an individual. People naturally have an intuition about other people based on different characteristics. Sometimes that intuition is right and sometimes it’s wrong, but it’s still a person’s first reaction. How good this intuition is as a countermeasure depends on two things: how accurate the intuition is and how effective it is when it becomes institutionalized or when the profile characteristics become commonplace. One of the ways profiling becomes institutionalized is through computerization. Instead of Diana Dean looking someone over, a computer looks the profile over and gives it some sort of rating. Generally profiles with high ratings are further evaluated by people, although sometimes countermeasures kick in based on the computerized profile alone. This is, of course, more brittle. The computer can profile based only on simple, easy-to-assign characteristics: age, race, credit history, job history, et cetera. Computers don't get hinky feelings. Computers also can't adapt the way people can. Profiling works better if the characteristics profiled are accurate. If erratic driving is a good indication that the driver is intoxicated, then that’s a good characteristic for a police officer to use to determine who he’s going to pull over. If furtively looking around a store or wearing a coat on a hot day is a good indication that the person is a shoplifter, then those are good characteristics for a store owner to pay attention to. But if wearing baggy trousers isn't a good indication that the person is a shoplifter, then the store owner is going to spend a lot of time paying undue attention to honest people with lousy fashion sense. In common parlance, the term “profiling” doesn't refer to these characteristics. It refers to profiling based on characteristics like race and ethnicity, and institutionalized profiling based on those characteristics alone. During World War II, the U.S. rounded up over 100,000 people of Japanese origin who lived on the West Coast and locked them in camps (prisons, really). That was an example of profiling. Israeli border guards spend a lot more time scrutinizing Arab men than Israeli women; that’s another example of profiling. In many U.S. communities, police have been known to stop and question people of color driving around in wealthy white neighborhoods (commonly referred to as “DWB”--Driving While Black). In all of these cases you might possibly be able to argue some security benefit, but the trade-offs are enormous: Honest people who fit the profile can get annoyed, or harassed, or arrested, when they’re assumed to be attackers. For democratic governments, this is a major problem. It’s just wrong to segregate people into “more likely to be attackers” and “less likely to be attackers” based on race or ethnicity. It’s wrong for the police to pull a car over just because its black occupants are driving in a rich white neighborhood. It’s discrimination. But people make bad security trade-offs when they’re scared, which is why we saw Japanese internment camps during World War II, and why there is so much discrimination against Arabs in the U.S. going on today. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it effective security. Writing about the Japanese internment, for example, a 1983 commission reported that the causes of the incarceration were rooted in “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” But just because something is wrong doesn't mean that people won't continue to do it. Ethics aside, institutionalized profiling fails because real attackers are so rare: Active failures will be much more common than passive failures. The great majority of people who fit the profile will be innocent. At the same time, some real attackers are going to deliberately try to sneak past the profile. During World War II, a Japanese American saboteur could try to evade imprisonment by pretending to be Chinese. Similarly, an Arab terrorist could dye his hair blond, practice an American accent, and so on. Profiling can also blind you to threats outside the profile. If U.S. border guards stop and search everyone who’s young, Arab, and male, they’re not going to have the time to stop and search all sorts of other people, no matter how hinky they might be acting. On the other hand, if the attackers are of a single race or ethnicity, profiling is more likely to work (although the ethics are still questionable). It makes real security sense for El Al to spend more time investigating young Arab males than it does for them to investigate Israeli families. In Vietnam, American soldiers never knew which local civilians were really combatants; sometimes killing all of them was the security solution they chose. If a lot of this discussion is abhorrent, as it probably should be, it’s the trade-offs in your head talking. It’s perfectly reasonable to decide not to implement a countermeasure not because it doesn’t work, but because the trade-offs are too great. Locking up every Arab-looking person will reduce the potential for Muslim terrorism, but no reasonable person would suggest it. (It’s an example of “winning the battle but losing the war.”) In the U.S., there are laws that prohibit police profiling by characteristics like ethnicity, because we believe that such security measures are wrong (and not simply because we believe them to be ineffective). Still, no matter how much a government makes it illegal, profiling does occur. It occurs at an individual level, at the level of Diana Dean deciding which cars to wave through and which ones to investigate further. She profiled Ressam based on his mannerisms and his answers to her questions. He was Algerian, and she certainly noticed that. However, this was before 9/11, and the reports of the incident clearly indicate that she thought he was a drug smuggler; ethnicity probably wasn’t a key profiling factor in this case. In fact, this is one of the most interesting aspects of the story. That intuitive sense that something was amiss worked beautifully, even though everybody made a wrong assumption about what was wrong. Human intuition detected a completely unexpected kind of attack. Humans will beat computers at hinkiness-detection for many decades to come. And done correctly, this intuition-based sort of profiling can be an excellent security countermeasure. Dean needed to have the training and the experience to profile accurately and properly, without stepping over the line and profiling illegally. The trick here is to make sure perceptions of risk match the actual risks. If those responsible for security profile based on superstition and wrong-headed intuition, or by blindly following a computerized profiling system, profiling won’t work at all. And even worse, it actually can reduce security by blinding people to the real threats. Institutionalized profiling can ossify a mind, and a person’s mind is the most important security countermeasure we have. A couple of other points (not from the book): * Whenever you design a security system with two ways through -- an easy way and a hard way -- you invite the attacker to take the easy way. Profile for young Arab males, and you'll get terrorists that are old non-Arab females. This paper looks at the security effectiveness of profiling versus random searching. * If we are going to increase security against terrorism, the young Arab males living in our country are precisely the people we want on our side. Discriminating against them in the name of security is not going to make them more likely to help. * Despite what many people think, terrorism is not confined to young Arab males. Shoe-bomber Richard Reid was British. Germaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 London bombers, was Afro-Caribbean. Here are some more examples: In 1986, a 32-year-old Irish woman, pregnant at the time, was about to board an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv when El Al security agents discovered an explosive device hidden in the false bottom of her bag. The woman’s boyfriend--the father of her unborn child--had hidden the bomb. In 1987, a 70-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman--neither of whom were Middle Eastern--posed as father and daughter and brought a bomb aboard a Korean Air flight from Baghdad to Thailand. En route to Bangkok, the bomb exploded, killing all on board. In 1999, men dressed as businessmen (and one dressed as a Catholic priest) turned out to be terrorist hijackers, who forced an Avianca flight to divert to an airstrip in Colombia, where some passengers were held as hostages for more than a year-and-half. The 2002 Bali terrorists were Indonesian. The Chechnyan terrorists who downed the Russian planes were women. Timothy McVeigh and the Unibomber were Americans. The Basque terrorists are Basque, and Irish terrorists are Irish. Tha Tamil Tigers are Sri Lankan. And many Muslims are not Arabs. Even worse, almost everyone who is Arab is not a terrorist -- many people who look Arab are not even Muslims. So not only are there an large number of false negatives -- terrorists who don't meet the profile -- but there an enormous number of false positives: innocents that do meet the profile. TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.