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Follow on Google News | "Public Overwhelmingly Supports Profiling" by TSA - WashPost; Even More Would If Understood"The public overwhelmingly supports profiling" by the TSA, reports the Washington Post, but that percentage would almost certainly be far higher if the public understood the difference between "racial profiling" and "terrorist profiling."
According to the Post, a majority supports profiling based upon nationality but not race [40% support] or religion [39% support], although profiling based solely on nationality can in effect target people based upon their religion and/or ethnicity. For example, under new security procedures triggered by the Christmas bomber, international passengers flying or holding passports from 14 countries were to be automatically selected for secondary or enhanced screening. Aside from Cuba, all of these are Muslim countries, with most of the 13 having a Muslim population of at least 90%. Also, 8 of the 13 are regarded as Arabic countries. So, in effect, with regard to international flights, the procedures do largely single out Muslims and Arabs. Unfortunately, it's not a very effective policy, because it fails to distinguish between different threat levels posed by young males on the one hand, and by toddlers and elderly women from these 14 countries on the other. http://www.prlog.org/ A recent study demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that failing to select passengers for enhanced screening based IN PART on factors like religion, ethnicity, gender, and age makes the procedure far less likely to detect terrorists, causes much more delay than necessary, and inefficiently subjects a large number of people to intrusive and largely unnecessary secondary screening, says Banzhaf. Probably the reason why the TSA's procedures - particularly for domestic flights when toddlers and elderly women are subjected to full-body searches and young Arabic males get no greater scrutiny - are so ineffective is the widespread belief that using factors like ethnicity, gender, etc. in any way is unconstitutional. But the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the government may consider such factors, provided it serves a "compelling state interest," and that no single factor - e.g., religion - is decisive. In other words, as the U.S. Department of Justice has also reported, it is constitutional to base governmental selections on factors like race or ethnicity, provided that it is not the only factor considered. That's why, for example, university affirmative action plans remain constitutional; Similarly, while it may be unconstitutional to select passengers for screening based solely upon their religion or ethnicity - perhaps even when combined with other clearly predictive factors like age or gender (i.e., "racial profiling") - it is constitutional to take all of these factors into consideration provided that other things (e.g., suspicious behavior, inappropriate clothing, one-way tickets, etc.) were also taken into account in selecting passengers for enhanced screening ("terrorist profiling"). The study does not recommend that only young Arab or Muslim males be selected for enhanced screening, or that low risk passengers like toddlers or elderly Asian females never be selected. But it does provide a simple mathematical formula under which those with the highest probability of being terrorists (based upon various factors including ethnicity, age, and gender) would be selected more often, and those with the lowest probability would be selected far less frequently. Even those objectors who may be forced to admit that treating all passengers exactly equally makes no sense, and that a system which uses factors like ethnicity and age only in combination with other factors is constitutional, still argue that it's unfair to single out Muslims or Arabs because of the stigma it imposes. But Prof. Banzhaf suggests that if he were living in South Africa at a time when a tiny fanatic minority of White separatists began blowing up planes and using the Internet to urge those who support their cause to do likewise, he would strongly support enhanced screening for Whites such as himself, and would feel no stigma. "Even though only a tiny minority of my fellow Whites were terrorists, I would still feel far safer in flying if all Whites were carefully screened. I would also get onto my flight more quickly since the airport would not waste so much time subjecting the great majority of passengers (who are Black) to enhanced scrutiny since the odds of Blacks supporting - and being willing to give their lives for - a White separatist cause is minuscule," argues Banzhaf. There should be no stigma to the great majority of members of any group who are not criminals, suggests Banzhaf. If there was credible evidence that a group of presidential assassins were being dispatched by the Mafia, the Secret Service would carefully scrutinize everyone, but would give special scrutiny to Italians. If the plot was known to be by the Triad Society, Chinese would be more carefully screened, and, if by the Yakuza, scrutiny would be increased for Japanese visitors. Banzhaf has urged Representative Peter King [R-NY], incoming chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, to conduct hearings based upon this new study to see how TSA procedures could be made far more effective at intercepting terrorists, in reducing delays, and limiting intrusive screening for the great majority of passengers who do not present an enhanced risk, by considering religion or ethnicity, gender, and age, among other factors. "Although I have brought more than 100 successful legal actions against a variety of illegal forms of discrimination, I nevertheless believe that this situation is unique, and very different from other instances of what are commonly termed 'racial profiling': e.g., stopping drivers solely because they are African American (sometimes called 'Driving While Black')." He notes that the Justice Department also recognizes the important distinction between using race for routine traffic stops or combating ordinary crime (where it is strictly prohibited) and using race as one factor in preventing a terrorist incident (where it is lawful). For example, see "Guidance Regarding The Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies," the Department states [http://www.justice.gov/ PROFESSOR JOHN F. BANZHAF III Professor of Public Interest Law George Washington University Law School FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor, FELLOW, World Technology Network 2013 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20006, USA (202) 659-4310 // (703) 527-8418 http://banzhaf.net/ End
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