Originally Posted by studentff
Agree with the second part but not the first.
In the months following 9/11 when random pullasides and gate checks were much more common (even without SSSS), there were all kinds of media reports from airport security workers of them being told from above not to avoid intentionally extra screening for arabs or "middle-eastern-lookng" types even if they were "suspicious," because it would give the appearance of racial profiling and generally look bad. There were also stories that some checkpoints were given "quotas" of the maximum number of arabs or "middle-eastern-looking" types they could pull aside over a given timeframe.
Did you really mean to use a double negative-type phrasing there with security workers "told from above
not to avoid intentionally extra screening" "arabs" & "middle easterners"? As it is stated, it could be read by some to indicate that security screeners were given the "wink-wink, nod-nod" to go ahead and intentionally extra screen like xenophobes, which is exactly what they did. But I don't think that is what you are saying. Could you please restate that without the double negative-type phrasing which can lead to ambiguity?
Anecdotal news reports being just that, the number of frequent traveling males cross-referenced as being "Middle Eastern" and aged between the ages of 18-40 (or something like that) that flew out of DCA on one airline on one route were far more likely to be selected for additional gate-area screening than any other demographic group sampled and found to have similar travel patterns.
Also, the number of phone calls from airports that were handled by certain FBI field offices on matters that appear to have been related to people of "Middle Eastern" "origin" flying out of certain airports jumped up while calls from those same airports related to people not of "Middle Eastern" origin didn't seem to have skyrocketed in number.
This "behavioral profiling" idiocy will, in effect, be much the same, with selection based on xenophobia and then a lot of "easy targets" (e.g., elderly, flight crews "'accustomed' to the routine", etc.) to make it seem like xenophobia hasn't infected America.
Contrary to reports about "Middle Eastern" types being a "protected category", such persons are anything but a "protected" category when it comes to selection by security idiocy at airports (i.e., the haraSSSSment-producing engines, various blacklists, picked on by ignorant xenophobes at airports, etc.).
Even if security were given a maximum quota of the absolute number of "Middle Eastern" types that can be subjected to this nonsense per day, that number wouldn't rule out such types of persons from being selected 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, or even 10x more often. The only meaningful quota that would have the meaning you may be giving to it would be one that said that not more than X% of all "Middle Eastern" paxs at a particular airport may be selected on a given day and that X% was the same percentage as applicable to the majority/dominant ethnic group(s) too. That kind of numbers-based real opposition to xenophobic security selection won't happen this time either, and we'll just get more of the "wink-wink, nod-nod" xenophobia in action; and with this (like that), it'll be with the same kind of anecdotal news reports that mislead in such a way as to annoy the people who believe in racist profiling while making the "do-good-feel-good" (and "lip service") crowd believe that xenophobia hasn't infected more of us than it has.