A few week ago in class we discussed whether profiling would reduce the risks of terrorist attacks. This article highlights the problem associated with profiling,which is, terrorists recruit from among those that are least likely to raise suspicion. Once the terrorist organization learns about the people who are exempt from being searched, they will recruit from among them, so as to ensure a successful operation. Proving this statement right,the Al-Queda in Iraq is recruiting mentally handicapped women to carry out their operations. Being mentally impaired, these women are extremely vulnerable and easily buy into terrorist propaganda. Also there is a higher likelihood of the operation being carried out successfully because these women are less likely to be searched as they raise little to no suspension with their unusual activities.
Profiling has another drawback, Al-Queda has been recruiting hundreds of British non-Muslims to carry out their war against the west. Though most of these recruits may eventually convert to Islam, for the sake of our security, it is important that no one is profiled and everyone is searched. We may be worse off profiling and scrutinizing an Arab looking man who has nothing to do with terrorism, while letting go of an elderly Caucasian who might have direct links to a terrorist network.
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5 comments:
Terrorist organizations certainly are adapting to the counter-terrorist measures that countries have taken, such as profiling certain races. I think we saw that with the handicapped suicide terrorist. I agree with swati that there are certainly risks of using just profiling. However, I think that perhaps profiling should be used in conjunction with other counter-terrorist methods to effectively prevent terrorist attacks. But it will be difficult as terrorist organization continue to change their target recruits.
I agree completely with Swati. Profiling is a bad idea. It is both ineffective and inefficient. Additionally, the trade off (what we give up in terms of civil liberties, stereotyping, and alienating large segments of society) in order to profile is just too great. I think the costs far outweigh the benefits.
However, in some of our class discussions we have talked about more advanced and precise techniques for identifying potential terrorists through using computers to analyze large amounts of data. This technique also comes with its trade offs, but I feel that the trade offs associated with this technique would be less damaging to the social fabric of our nation than flat out profiling.
I disagree that profiling is ineffective, but agree that we should not use it. Now that we know al-Qaeda is recruiting handicapped women, we can adjust and profile them. Too often we assume that the terrorists are the only ones adapting to the environment. Counterterrorism experts can adapt just as easily as the terrorists can. While profiling is imperfect, there is no way you can argue that randomly searching people is more effective in fighting terrorism.
My concern with racial or ethnic profiling is that it tramples on civil liberties. Even if profiling is effective (which I believe it is), I still don't think we should use it. Like Jon said, it is not worth the trade-offs involved.
I don't think that there is a problem with profiling as long as it is not based merely on race, religion, or country of origin. Naive and biased profiling is wrong, but when we use the data analysis that we have discussed in class I think that profiling can be very productive. But there should have to be a strong correlation and a fairly large number of different aspects (web browsing, travel, buying bomb materials, ethnicity, religion, opposition to the government, etc.). Profiling is a counterterrorist method that we must be very very careful with. The reason that I feel profiling must be more thorough is because of the things that have already been discussed, race and ethnicity are not always a common factor among terrorist organizations and their recruits.
The heart of the problem for me is racial, ethnic and religious profiling...for me these things are wrong because they assume that certain races, religions or ethnicites have an innate essence that makes them act a certain way. We know that people, whoever they are, are free to choose how they will act. Hitler and Slaveowners believed that the people they oppressed where the same because they all had the same racial essence. When we talk about trade-offs, believing that we should target a certain group of people because they are essentially the ones committing the acts is too high a price to pay. I like to believe we have become more civilized in the last two-hundred years...maybe I'm wrong.
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