Racial, Ethnic, And Religious Profiling? Sure, Why Not!

Although it might seem like federal agents pretty much do this already, there are reports that the Justice Department is "considering" letting the FBI conduct investigate Americans based solely on racial, religious, and ethnic traits. Knowing the ideological makeup of the Justice Department, it's easy to guess how things are going to turn out after the department brass is done "considering."

Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons _ like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated _ to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.

Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person's race or ethnicity.

Agents say that detaining or investigating Muslims or Arabs or Africans or people who travel to the Middle East will help them find terrorists before they strike. Or maybe they'll just be spending taxpayers' hard-earned cash following innocent Joe Schmoes who have Arabic names and worship at mosques. This is why we love America! [HP]

Jul 3, 2008 · posted by Lauren Williams, Stereohyped · Link · 6 Responses

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Tagged: Justice Department, Racial Profiling

Comments (6)

No. 1 · coco

i am mostly outraged by this

racial/religious/ethnic profiling has the effect of disportionately imprisioning the types of people being profiled — so in 10 years, won't the ppl in prison over these investigations be skewed towards this racial/ethnic/religious profile?

forget investigating folk on the strength of evidence. that was going nowhere, huh?

it smells like those disparate sentencing guidelines for crack vs. cocaine (in the "war on drugs") that wound up imprisioning black men at a rate 100 times that of white men.

Posted: Jul 3, 2008 at 1:52 pm

No. 2 · simplestuff

i thought we passed laws against this shit?? oh well, i guess its ok to discriminate kuz those white americans are so XENOPHOBIC that if you are an outsider, you must be a goddamn terrorist!

grow the fuck up america! ughhhhhhhh

obama better become president FAST and stop this shit from happening!

Posted: Jul 3, 2008 at 5:31 pm

No. 3 · solitaire

If arabs/muslims weren't the ones blowing up planes, and launching terror attacks around the world, then they wouldn't need to be profiled.

Perhaps 9/11 wouldn't have happened if those guys had been properly investigated from the start. If people have nothing to hide, then a security check shouldn't be a problem.

Posted: Jul 3, 2008 at 11:21 pm

No. 4 · K.I.M.

I'm on the same page as solitaire.

People try to act color-racial blind, but we use stereotypes to protect ourselves at times. It's human nature, and I can understand why it is happening…whether it be right or wrong.

Posted: Jul 6, 2008 at 8:34 pm

No. 5 · DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!!!!

Disgusting.

Posted: Jul 7, 2008 at 2:25 pm

No. 6 · coco

There are better ways of figuring out if someone is a terrorist suspect than determining what religion and ethnic group they belong to.

you can look at who they associate with, whether they have criminal plans, whether they've assembled tools to carry out those plans, and whether they've taken steps to implement those plans.

profiling innocent people because of their religion/ethnicity is a waste of time and money. both theirs and the govts.

by using such a broad net, they're likely to catch a lot of people on unrelated counts, but very few terrorists.

Posted: Jul 7, 2008 at 4:46 pm

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