I’m usually dubious about profiling, but I must break with my usual scepticism to support former ASIO officer Michael Roach who says
They need to be given a criteria as to what they should be looking for and there is a criteria. What the public needs to be looking for, what the trained officials need to be looking for, is somebody standing in the corner, somebody who’s holding onto their backpack, somebody who looks really concerned and anxious. Somebody who’s clean shaven …
John Quiggin 
Yes indeed!
But life gets more difficult for our security agencies.
In light of the revelation that the London bomber apprehended in Rome claims not to be Islamist, clean-shaven persons clutching rucksacks on public transport who happen to be facing Mecca are no more suspect than those facing any other direction.
We can make light of this but one of my business partners is a third-generation Arab-Australian of Marionite Christian heritage.
He uses public transport, carries a backpack and currently he wears a coat because its winter here (by Queensland standards).
When the rest of us take the trains these days, we have a vague fear of being caught in a bombing, Tony has the additional worry that if he makes a wrong move he could end up with eight bullets in his head.
The normally conservative Alex Mitchell of the Sun-Herald opined on Sydney Local Radio last evening that Roach was quite wrong to suggest this.
He pointed out that ASIO and the other security services must be asleep at the wheel if this is the best that they can up with after nearly four years since Sept. 11 and presumeably some hints that something was going on even before that.
People with an alleged ME appearance have been part of our society since at least 1788 and it’s time for us as a nation to face that fact and come up with innovative answers to this problem – if indeed it is actually one.
I remind you all: the only two terrorist incidents in this part of the world were in the one case at least sponsored by the security agencies of this country and in the other actually carried out by the agents of the French government.
In addition the current crop of terrorist organisations did not simply drop out the sky. The Mujahadeen and indeed AQ were sponsored in part by the US right and government. Millions if not billions were poured into the “freedom fighters” of Afghanistan and still more on organisations deemed to be “freedom loving” by the US government to undermine legitimate governments in South America and Africa. A great deal of effort was also put into providing support to providing support to Iraq during its war on Iran.
One could take the libertarian view and argue it “discriminates” against those from the Middle East and/or Central Asia. But there are other principles at stake here, namely security, and the reality is that anything that might assist the authorities to identify terrorist suspects would be helpful.
MB,
But is it helpful?
For starters, how good is the average security officer at distinguishing between, say, Greeks, Italians and Indians on the one hand and Turks, Arabs and Pakistanis on the other? And do you want to entrust your life to a security measure that can be defeated by a $1 packet of blond hair dye?
I could reasonably be described as being of middle eastern appearance – that’s because while I’m the typical Aussie mutt I include several Ashgenazi Jews amongst my immediate ancestors. Two of my brothers and one of my sisters take after the German side of the family and would pass without a glance.
Also, is it an effective use of limited manpower to conduct random searches on people based on a flawed premise – too bad if the first islamic terrorist atyack in Australia is launched by a muslim convert like David Hicks or by Indonesians or Nigerians.
“too bad if the first islamic terrorist atyack in Australia is launched by a muslim convert like David Hicks or by Indonesians or Nigerians.”
Or by a Jamaican convert to Islam, as actually happened in England.
Profiling might well have stopped the 911 massacres, since law enforcement resources were diluted and diverted by political correctness over Saudi visitors.
Ah, but, there are some people who, Edward Lear fashion, can hide backpacks in their beards!
The world’s most famous Muslim convert, Muhammed Ali, might have trouble getting a visa next time he is invited here to a big sporting event.
Of course he doesn’t have a beard, so could slip through, but to be on the safe side, he should change his name back to Cassius Clay.
“Profiling might well have stopped the 911 massacres, since law enforcement resources were diluted and diverted by political correctness over Saudi visitors.”
Yup, Jack. I guess the Bush Clique did some pretty heavy duty racial and religious profiling when they allowed this to happen:
“Richard Clarke (former Chief of Counterintelligence in the Bush White House) revealed that top White House officials approved the evacuation of 140 influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama Bin Laden, days after the Sept. 11 attacks at a time when all commercial and private flights were grounded.”
What does racial profiling mean anyway? Does it mean that police will be carrying out stop and search procedures against people who are out and about for no other reason than they fit a profile? If so then it sounds absurdly ineffectual. If there are four unknown soon to be bombers amongst us and 1/2 million people fit the profile, then the odds are slightly long that on the morning of their act the cops will pick them using racial profiling.
This is all just talk isn’t it? Kite flying and shit stirring for political purposes.
Wbb, the actual statistics seem to be 60 suspected muslim extremists (some of whom may not fit the profile) amongst around 300,000 Australian muslims – a good number of whom would not fit the profile – and probably one million plus Australians of Southern European, middle Eastern and South Asian who do fit the profile.
Katz,
Spinsanity lays that one to rest:
“The Saudi flights
In another scene, Moore suggests that members of Osama Bin Laden’s family and other Saudis were able to fly out of the country while air traffic was grounded after September 11. After an initial report in Newsweek inaccurately characterized the scene, saying it had made a direct claim to that effect, Moore’s staff replied with a legalistic parsing. The film does accurately date the Saudi flights out of the country to “after September 13” as they claim (flights leaving the country resumed on the 14th), but Moore does not take the important step of explaining the meaning of this date in the film… The “after September 13th” clause may show that Moore’s claim was technically accurate, but it leaves viewers with the distinct impression that the Bin Ladens left the country before others were allowed to.”
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20040702.html
Yeah, interesting Paul.
I did a bit of digging on this one and discovered that the quote I gave above simplifies the truth and plays with dates. On the other hand, that Spinsanity site does a bit of its own obsfucatory parsing.
Here is an extract from Richard Clarke’s testimony before the 9-11 Commission, 24 March 2004:
“[CLARKE] Now, as to this controversy about the Saudi evacuation aircraft, let me tell you
everything I know, which is that in the days following 9/11 — whether it was on 9/12 or
9/15, I can’t tell you — we were in a constant crisis management meeting that had
started the morning of 9/11 and ran for days on end. We were making lots of
decisions, but we were coordinating them with all the agencies through the video
teleconference procedure.
CLARKE: Someone — and I wish I could tell you, but I don’t know who — someone
brought to that group a proposal that we authorize a request from the Saudi
embassy. The Saudi embassy had apparently said that they feared for the lives of
Saudi citizens because they thought there would be retribution against Saudis in the
United States as it became obvious to Americans that this attack was essentially
done by Saudis, and that there were even Saudi citizens in the United States who
were part of the bin Laden family, which is a very large family, very large…”
It is possible, as Clarke remembers it, that the flights in question left after the lifting of the grounding of aircraft.
However, it is certain that at the moment that the US was dealing with the 9-11 attacks, Richard Clarke, who headed up White House counterintelligence and was thus one ofthe most important figures in US response to terrorism originaing within the US, was required by someone inside the White House to act as the Saudis’ travel agent.
He later states that he refused to do the Saudis’ or their contacts inside the White House’s bidding and passed on their requests to the FBI.
Pathetic!
If lame stereotype profiling is the best they can do… then somebody hasn’t been doing their job, simple as that.
And the best they can do, is learn, watch & infiltrate the terrorist groups, but oh no! that would mean doing real work, instead of trying to divide & conquer (internally in Oz & everywhere else too) thru lame media stories, to score cheap points.
Like Hanson has said many times, “hoWARd has stolen my policies…”
Re the bin ladens escape from the US post 9/11.
I have read all the testimony and the truth is that around 30 saudis flew from several states to a central airport from where they were repatriated.The security services only managed short interviews with a few of them,saudi embassy officials were very efficient at shielding their charges from the authorities.
This operation included successfully confusing the law officers about the identities of the saudis.
Makes the treatment of david hicks look a little shabby.
Katz,
I don’t disagree with your basic premise that the treatment of the Saudi’s travel post 9-11 was very, very irregular – just dealing with the specific claim about the general ban on outgoing flights.
Well, I have a beard and my genetics are Cornish – you know, the dark-haired stocky tin miner build. I copped a 28 minute interrogation at the point of an Uzi at Ben Gurion airport in 1998 while my tall, fair travelling companion was waved through.
I think this sort of profiling is likely to increase alienation amongst the target groups and create terrorists.
Did you become a terrorist?
Come on, Yobbo, the Cornish are stereotypically the most clannish of the groups within England proper – they have never been fully assimilated. They are just waiting for the Vikings to attack again or for some other disaster to befall so they can seize their chance and advance on London, the way they do every few centuries.
The Economist for July 30th (page 51) has an article on the London bombings which I don’t believe is available on-line.
In it the paper notes: “Between 2000-1 and 2003-4, the number of Asians stopped and searched rose 60%, compared with an 8% among the population of England and Wales.”
So it appears that profiling was in fact being employed and failed to prevent the bombings.
It’s also noteworthy that the perpetrators of the second wave of bombings appear to have been East African refugees. I haven’t seen pictures of the peopel arrested in relation to these bombings but I tend to doubt they’d fit a middle eastern profile.