Monday, August 14, 2006

Profiling

Lord Stevens speaks. Tim Ireland disagrees ("shouty-crackers" - talk about pots and kettles). So does the Yogurty One ("crackerjack profiling plan"). Davide Simonetti talks from the Nether Regions ("unintelligent and racist").

Chick Yog turned his Bloggerheads comment into a post. Good idea. I posted on CY as follows :

“here’s where Steven’s crackerjack profiling plan falls on it’s abject arse. At least one of the men arrested last week was a white convert.”

So approximately 5% of those arrested last week were white. And 5% Afro-Caribbean. Both converts.

Are you lot really suggesting that security people should spend as much time checking the bags of an elderly English lady, or a Scots couple with three kids, as on the bearded Asian guy ? Given that security resources are not infinite, something that Andrew Bartlett (in the CY comments - LT) seems to take no account of ?

I believe during the ‘troubles’ that a lot more Irish than English people were checked at Stranraer. Doesn’t seem too bad an idea to me.

Wow. A white convert might get through. How true. But we’re talking averages and probabilities here. As your defeatist forebears (they were arguing against spending cash on air defences) said in the early 30s ‘The bomber will always get through’ - and it’s true. All we can do is try to minimise the numbers.

I would expect that white and black converts are probably being noted down somewhere anyway - I certainly hope so. You know what they say about the zeal of the convert - they’re certainly over-represented in the exploding ranks.

Now you COULD argue that profiling will maximise the numbers, on the ground that it will so alienate the sons of the prophet that we’ll end up with more bombers. I look forward to someone explicitly arguing this :

“these guys are no more likely to be terrorists than anyone else. And if you say they ARE more likely, a small minority of them, supported by a much larger minority, may decide to blow you up, so don’t say it”.




NOTE - on one of the threads, some idiot aired the original thought of genius, never heard before, "did we suspect all Catholics during the IRA terror years (1969-200?)". This post to him !

12 comments:

AntiCitizenOne said...

Also remember that white converts to the death cult will tend to be more visible to whoever is watching and thus easier to deal with in other ways.

Anonymous said...

Those who have worked in Saudi Arabia will recall those few western converts to Islam who would appear on TV to tell of their glorious conversion. They were well rewarded for their trouble, but were easily recognised for what they were because of their erratic behaviour.
If Israel has the best profiling system, with lowest risk of failure, then lets get their advice and put the thing into operation. Easier than you would possibly imagine.

Michaelcd said...

Absolutely spot-on Laban.

The other argument, usually brought out by self appointed "community leaders", is that it will 'damage community relations'. Of course, they fail to explain how this will damage relations more than a massive terrorist attack!

Anonymous said...

Is this the former head of the Met Lord Stevens? Personally I thought he was a bit soft when he was in charge, but he was Ghengis Khan compared to Ian Blair, who seems to have taken his position during a sabbatical from working for "Liberty".

Ironic - I never thought I'd see the day when I was ruefully looking back to Lord Steven's rule of the Met as a "golden age" of tough and competent policing.

DJ said...

Yada, yada, yada. Leftards always oppose whatever action Britain is taking in favour of incredibly complex plans that involve doing in the short-term the exact opposite to what any sane person would recommend. So the answer to dealing with Muslim terrorism is not to concentrate effort on Muslims. Of course.

At the last count, approximatly no one was calling for a system based entirely on racial profiling. What the Right wants is a system which uses ethnic (not racial) profiling alongside other factors - as opposed to now, when security staff are specifically prevented from using a factor which will 'only' pick up 90% of terrorists. Would that a Liberal policy could ever achieve 90% success.

It don't get easier than this. The Right thinks self-confessed supporters of a cult that supports mass murder should face a higher risk of being inconvienienced. The Left thinks British citizens should face a higher risk of being slaughtered. Make your own choice.

Anonymous said...

Only a retired plod could use this as an excuse to "re-think" ID cards; billions more wasted on a crackpot scheme that won't work against criminals and terrorists, but line the pockets of NuLabour cronies in the IT business and further turn GB into a police state.

Col. B. Bunny said...

Re profiling of white converts: note that Mr. Stewart-Whyte had grown a beard and shaved his head. He might have a white skin but how hard would it be to figure out that this guy is a goofball? A fortiori if he had used his new name on his passport. Wait for it . . . . "Abdul," my brudders.

Even if 5% of those arrested were white and 5% Afro-Caribbean that would mean that 90% of those arrested were Middle Eastern or South Asian in appearance. Not a bad place to start when one is wondering whom to search at an airport. The delicate "sensibilities" of Muslims need to give way to the obvious -- not all Muslims are terrorists but almost all terrorists are Muslims.

This writer was singled out for special searching when boarding a domestic U.S. flight. I knew immediately why I had been singled out and was absolutely unperturbed by having to take off my shoes, etc. Big deal.

I fit a reasonable profile prior to being searched. The profile proved not to be an accurate way of IDing a hijacker in my particular case but I don't for a minute assume that the profile is without basis in experience.

So what if I had been stopped because of my Caucasian features, were that to be something that made sense to focus on? Enduring a search by polite screeners is not the end of the world for a reasonable person.

Muslims are trying to prevent reasonable detection measures. Their "outrage" is as bogus as when the galactic Ummah went ballistic over the Motoons.

I am tired of Muslim sniveling and dissimulation.

Anonymous said...

col.b.bunny - You are correct. The "outrage" is manufactured. Just like the Motoons. It's all primitive theatre. I'm not even sure that they're up to the Dark Ages yet.

And why has the West - especially Britain and W Europe, not forced them to justify female genital mutilation, for example. Or hanging men born gay. And why do they sentence rape victims to death for "having sex outside marriage"? What if the little victim wasn't old enough to be married? Although, as that's nine in Islamic terms, maybe this isn't a useful point.

Anonymous said...

I was going to add that the converts or reverts as the musselmen call them are fairly easy to identify. As col.b.bunny points out they usually have some abdul or mohamed moniker in the pasport. Though I imagine the next step will be a change of name by deed poll back to some less obvious.

Ross said...

The thing about converts to islam is that they are generally losers. When Saudi terrorists flew planes into the WTC the culprits were well educated and competent, when Richard Reid tried to detonate his shoe bomb he failed utterly, because he was an incompetent moron who had been in and out of jail most of his life. In short even if the numbers of convert terrorists was equal to the number of born muslim terrorists it would still make sense to profile the latter.

Anonymous said...

and, of course, to keep convicted losers in prison for longer. Wannabe terrorists can't blow up planes if they are in chokey.

Anonymous said...

Wannabe terrorists can't blow up planes

No, they need some inside assistance.


Details here