NY Times op-ed page case for racial profiling on subways

How depressing. The lead op-ed piece in today’s New York Times (picked up by several papers around the country, such as the Houston Chronicle) is an open and abject call—not only for surrendering our privacy rights in the name of “security,” which nearly everybody seems to take for granted—but for racial profiling. Utterly terrifying how quickly these ideas are being legitimized.

Without profiling, searches of bags on subway useless
Girl Scouts and grannies won’t be carrying bombs

By PAUL SPERRY

In response to the serial subway bombings in London, Mayor Michael Bloomberg prudently ordered the police to start searching the bags of New York’s subway riders. But there will be absolutely no profiling, Bloomberg vowed: The police will select one out of every five passengers to search, and they will do so at random, without regard for race or religion.

In that case, the security move is doomed to fail.

Young Muslim men bombed the London tube, and young Muslim men attacked New York with planes in 2001. From everything we know about the terrorists who may be taking aim at our transportation system, they are most likely to be young Muslim men.

Unfortunately, however, this demographic group won’t be profiled. Instead, the authorities will be stopping Girl Scouts and grannies in a procedure that has more to do with demonstrating tolerance than with protecting citizens.

Critics protest that profiling is prejudicial. In fact, it’s based on statistics. Insurance companies profile policyholders based on probability of risk. That’s just smart business. Likewise, profiling passengers based on proven security risk is just smart law enforcement…

But rather than acknowledge this obvious fact, the New York Police Department has advised subway riders to be alert for “people” in bulky clothes who sweat or fiddle nervously with bags.

Well, a lot of people wear bulky clothes. A lot of people fiddle with their bags. And for that matter, a lot of people sweat. Could the Police Department be any more general in describing the traits of an Islamic suicide bomber? Could its advice be more useless?

Truth be told, commuters need to be most aware of young men praying to Allah and smelling like flower water. Law enforcement knows this, and so should you.

According to a January 2004 handout, the Department of Homeland Security advises U.S. border authorities to look out for certain “suicide bomber indicators.” They include a “shaved head or short haircut. A short haircut or recently shaved beard or moustache may be evident by differences in skin complexion on the head or face. May smell of herbal or flower water (most likely flower water), as they may have sprayed perfume on themselves, their clothing, and weapons to prepare for Paradise.

“Suspects may have been seen “praying fervently, giving the appearance of whispering to someone. Recent suicide bombers have raised their hands in the air just before the explosion to prevent the destruction of their fingerprints. They have also placed identity cards in their shoes because they want to be praised and recognized as martyrs.”

The bodies of the London suicide bombers were recognized by their identification cards. And on the eve of the 9/11 attacks, the hijackers shaved and perfumed themselves with flower water in a pre-martyrdom ritual called ablution…

Not only is there no passenger profiling on Amtrak, but there’s no screening or mandatory searching of carry-on bags. The only restriction on bags is a 50-pound weight limit — and that’s not much comfort when you recall that the bombs used in London weighed only 10 pounds.

Once an Islamist suicide bomber is sitting next to you on the train, your chances of escape are slim. The only solution is for the police to stop him well before he boards your car. But with the system as it stands, that terrorist could easily slip in through the numerical window of random security screening.

By not allowing police to profile the most suspicious train passengers — young Muslim men who fit the indicators above — Bloomberg and other leaders not only tie one hand behind law enforcement’s back, but they also provide terrorists political cover to carry out their murderous plans. Call it politically correct suicide.

What’s really weird is that this freedom-hating Sperry (listed here as a Hoover Institution fellow and author of Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington) is also a fave contributor to AntiWar.com, because of his criticisms of Bush’s conduct of the War on Terrorism—not, we emphaszie, of the concept of a US global military crusade itself. Interestingly, on AntiWar, he is listed as author of Crude Politics: How Bush’s Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism. How slick! He plays Islamophobe for the New York Times crowd, while playing his anti-corporate card for the AntiWar crowd. Sperry certainly knows how to please an audience.

Meanwhile, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is providing at least a little resistance on the ever-slipperier slope towards an Orwellian surveillance state, urging New Yorkers to write in their experiences with subway searches, with an eye towards a possible legal challenge to the practice.

“Empowering police officers to conduct random searches of individuals without suspicion of criminal wrongdoing constitutes a gross infringement of the fundamental rights and liberties of persons living in a free society,” says NYCLU’s executive director Donna Lieberman. “Conducting random searches of persons traveling in the mass transit system will do little if anything to enhance the public safety.”

Feeling lonely, Donna? So are we.

See our last post on paranoia in New York and London.

  1. Dov Hikind: freedom-hater
    As if we didn’t know. From NY1, Aug. 2:

    Hikind Stands By Call To Employ Racial Profiling In Subway Searches
    Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind is not backing down from his controversial request that local law enforcement officials use ethnic profiling in their fight against terrorism.

    Hikind is urging the New York Police Department to use terrorist profiling when it conducts subway bag searches.

    In a statement released Sunday, Hikind said that “We have to give the NYPD every single tool in the war on terrorism. It’s a fact of life that the London suicide bombers on July 7th and July 21st fit a very precise intelligence profile.”

    In response, the NYPD released a statement saying: “Racial profiling is illegal, of doubtful effectiveness, and against department policy.”

    But on Monday, Hikind reiterated his recommendation that authorities abandon the current policy of random searches in favor of a more targeted approach.

    “Those responsible for the attacks on America, the 19 people involved in the World Trade Center dastardly act – and the London bombers – when we look at the list of the most-wanted people by the FBI in terms of terrorism, they fit a profile,” Hikind said Monday. “They look a certain way, they are young, and they come from a certain part of the world.”

  2. why didn’t you post the whole
    why didn’t you post the whole story instead of omitting the quote
    Besides, done properly, profiling would subject relatively few Muslims to searches. Elderly Muslim women don’t fit the terrorist profile. Young Muslim men of Arab or South Asian origin do. But rather than acknowledge this obvious fact, the New York Police Department has advised subway riders to be alert for “people” in bulky clothes who sweat or fiddle nervously with bags.

    Well, a lot of people wear bulky clothes. A lot of people fiddle with their bags. And for that matter, a lot of people sweat. Could the Police Department be any more general in describing the traits of an Islamic suicide bomber? Could its advice be more useless?

    1. OK, here’s the omitted quote

      “Those responsible for the attacks on America, the 19 people involved in the World Trade Center dastardly act – and the London bombers – when we look at the list of the most-wanted people by the FBI in terms of terrorism, they fit a profile,” Hikind said Monday. “They look a certain way, they are young, and they come from a certain part of the world.”

      Happy? Now your boy Hikind looks like even more of an idiot.

      We agree that this moronic policy isn’t making anyone safer. But I guess you don’t remember that the last time there was a conspiracy for a terrorist attack on the New York subways it didn’t come from Muslims, but from a neo-Nazi redneck named Larry Wayne Harris who planned to kill hundreds of thousands by unleashing bubonic plague toxins. He was a fat, middle-aged white guy and he was from the Midwest, not the Mideast.

      Wake up, dude.