meisterau

Well, I guess the college student in Portland who tried to blow up a bomb at the Christmas Tree lighting proves that wrong!

PhlyingRPh

It proves nothing whatsoever.

LuvAirFrance

Actually, the Portland case demonstrates proper USE of profiling. Right kind of suspect, travel history suggesting something going on, intense surveillance, in the end terror plans FRUSTRATED. Contrast that with the ridiculously-expensive, insulting and futile exercises at airports everywhere.

But I do know that the anti-profilers will dismiss every evidence that seems to contradict their notions about profiling as proving nothing. There are such things as permanently locked and sealed brains.

PhlyingRPh

Entrapment only snares the more dim witted mischief makers - the type who couldn't blow up a rubber Johnny yet alone pull of something meaningful and effective.

Before you start advocating separate and more stringent security measures for those you think are as violent and murderous as those in your own armed
forces, think about the number of actual acts of minor mischief that have been attempted and divide that number by the total number of travelers that meet the profile you have in mind, or the total number of flights flown in the last 9 years, or the total amount of money spent by the TSA in that time frame.

GUWonder

Doesn't it prove the government monitors emails that are routed across borders, or was that monitoring of his communications only done after he was lead to do that by those on the government payroll?

It is evidence that the FBI is engaged in profiling (of the sort that is bigoted against even lawful believers in Islam) so as to try to draw otherwise harmless nit-wits into engaging in talk and other activities that may make them appear to be harmful people the government can cart out as "success" stories after having entrapped the targeted racial/ethnic/religious group(s).

It indeed proves nothing about the mythical effectiveness of using such a bigoted approach at airports. Entrapping a border-line, beer-chugging, self-defeating flunkie of sorts -- that's the arrested subject of the OP -- doesn't take genius. Nor does it take genius to arrest a person after a crime has taken place. The OP's situation proves nothing about interdicting "clean skin" terrorist wannabes at airports who have committed no crime in the absence of being egged on by those on the government payroll and supplied by the government.

jordanmills

Our airports are full of terrorists. They're wearing the blue shirts with stripes on their shoulders.

tev9999

How is it profiling when they (apparently) had evidence linking him to know extremists?

Same as the story I heard on the news this morning of someone posting on a medical website (didn't identify where) asking what were the best methods for implanting a bomb in a human body. That calls for law enforcement to find out who it is (through legal subpoenas of ISPs, hopefully) and investigate that person. It does not call for profiling everyone that has a scar on their abdomen, as TSA would probably want to do.

gsoltso

Profiling will work in limited situations, such as the case of Israel. They unashamedly profile folks based on things that would never fly in this country, and there is a reason for it. Profiling in the US would be nothing but an exercise in futility, unless it is *qualified* profiling. By qualified, I mean there is something to trigger the profiling that is specific - behaviors, intelligence that shows a specific subset of humanity (such as a person traveling from a specific location at a specific time with specific identifiers - say a passenger named John flying out of Cincinnatti on Saturday). Simply profiling people based on the color of their skin, their ethnicity, religion or other mundane non specific traits would be a waste of time, and unethical. This country is entirely too diverse and cuturally diverse to do that type of profiling. We have muslims that live in Podunk, NC - Irish that live in Bushville ID, folks from India that live in all 50 states, immigrants from just about every country in this world, and travelers from just about every country in the US every day. Profiling based on non specifics just doesn't work.

khurley

What does this have to do with flying?

Flaflyer

Christmas Trees are well known landing sites for Air Santa sledcraft.

mulieri

Would he have gone undetected through the WTMD???

Seriously, what is your point?

LuvAirFrance

I'm not sure what the total evidence they have against is? But the fact is that they pursued a "suspect" based on things that indicated an unusual degree of risk. That's what I call profiling. When they frisk a baby, it isn't about any evidence of risk at all, it is just a practice of blind consistency. It is blanket treatment, it is dumb. Our cops would never catch anyone if they phoned everyone in town and asked them to come to the police station for interviews to weed them out in a given crime. The police, whatever their weaknesses might be, KNOW how stupid that would be. TSA,evidently, does not. It is really picking straws off a pile of hay and saying "Nope, that's not a needle. Nope, not that. Nope, not that." It is SO mindless that I'm just boggled that so many ostensibly intelligent people call it "necessary".

tev9999

A profile fits hundreds, thousands or millions: Males between 5'6" and 6', women with blond hair, children under 12, Flying Spaghetti Monster followers, etc. You can't get a warrant against a profile.

In the Oregon case, it looks like their "profile" was "the computer user at IP address 10.1.102.155 who made a threat against a tree lighting ceremony in PDX". That is well beyond the detail of profiling in my book - it is intelligence.

GUWonder

The federal government profiles people based on largely immutable factors that are given by way of birth: race/ethnicity/religion. How else do you think the FBI ends up harassing those US persons who are lawful believers in Islam and other believers in Islam more than other US persons who don't identify with or get identified with Islam? The current DOJ of the Obama Administration continues with the racist profiling that existed prior to January 20, 2009 and remains committed to fabricating "legal" cover for profiling.

By the way, the subject of the OP was prevented from flying to Alaska to work on a fishing boat to earn some money like thousands of other college age children. Instead the FBI wanted to keep him grounded in the lower 48 of the US in order to further mess up the life of this beer-guzzling chump arrested in Portland and egg him until they could claim "success" in the "war on terror" by whatever name it goes or doesn't..

Prior to being arrested, he was blacklisted by the US Government. His attempt to legitimately earn money to travel abroad was thwarted by those on the government payroll intent upon keeping him in the lower 48 of the US so he could be made into one of the government's "success" stories.

lovetotravel

Alaska is still in US, you probably did not mean to say abroad.