Free Republic

By: Faiza Patel Faiza Patel Earlier this month, responding to a question from the editor of this publication, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Janet Napolitano, categorically rejected the use of profiling in homeland security efforts.  Instead of focusing its resources on young, Muslim men, DHS paid the most attention to behavior indicating terrorist activity, such as travel patterns. The Secretary’s rejection of profiling is spot on, both as a matter of efficacy and as a matter of ethics. To begin with, commonly held assumptions about terrorism and stereotypes of terrorists are often incorrect and thus could...

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) warned President Barack Obama on Tuesday that Latinos will not regard as “acceptable” a move to make the E-Verify system of checking prospective employees’ immigration status mandatory for all U.S. firms, as urged by Republicans. Gutierrez, the Chicago-born son of Puerto Rican parents, gave the warning at a telephone press conference ahead of Wednesday’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement about a bill to impose E-Verify nationwide. That bill is being pushed by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, and Immigration Subcommittee Chair Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.). E-Verify,...

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NEWARK (CN) - The ACLU says the FBI and Justice Department blew off its requests for documents that will shed light on the FBI's "authority to collect, use and map racial and ethnic data in New Jersey." The ACLU says the FBI could use its secretive authority to spy on more than one-third of the population of New Jersey. "(M)ore than one in three New Jersey residents could be considered 'ethnic,' and their 'behaviors,' 'cultural traditions,' and 'life style characteristics' potentially could be mapped or otherwise analyzed by the FBI," the ACLU of New Jersey says in its federal FOIA...

A Pat-Down By Ari Bussel During the many stops of my international flight, I was only stopped in Frankfurt, twice as a matter of fact. In the United States, my suitcases were not even checked, and there were many things in them that might appear suspicious at first glance and would have required a secondary inspection. In Europe, no one paid much attention. I left the airport on foot, toting a carryon heavy enough to contain a bomb, circled the airport and returned. It was only my insistence to check out a certain lounge that twice subjected me to a...

A Federal watchdog revealed this week that Transportation Security Administration counterterrorism specialists failed to detect 16 separate jihad operatives who moved through target airports "on at least 23 different occasions." The name of the TSA monitoring program paying for all this flying-blind failure, I kid you not: SPOT. Under the "Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques" plan, TSA's designated behavior detection officers are supposed to closely watch travelers who pose potential security risks and who exhibit any number of appearances or activities "indicative of stress, fear, or deception." But long-entrenched, bipartisan American political correctness hampers the kind of effective, efficient...

At a mayoral candidates’ debate in 2009, fiscal conservatives Steve Cushman and Dale Francisco presented opposing views of undocumented immigrants in Santa Barbara. Francisco took the Tea Party position that they were parasites who were a terrible burden on the community; if elected he would consider raids on local businesses to apprehend and deport immigrants. Cushman stated that most undocumented immigrants are good, hard-working people who make an important contribution to our community. Who’s right? Economic Reality: Every industrialized country has seen the need to import low-wage immigrant labor to do the hardest, least attractive jobs—only this country denies them...

AUSTIN — Illegal immigration isn't on the short list of issues Texas sheriffs gave this year's Legislature, but it could end up becoming a new priority for them. Texas has 254 sheriffs, and while opinions vary about whether illegal immigration should be their problem, some Republicans are pushing measures that won't give them a choice. More than a dozen bills targeting illegal immigration await the Legislature when it convenes Tuesday, when the GOP will enter with a historic conservative supermajority in the House. One bill would require police to ask drivers without identification if they're in the country legally. Another...

The fanciful idea of living in a colorblind society is one of the greatest impediments to sophisticated discussions about race in America. If there is going to be a soothing of racial tensions in American society, there first has to be an understanding that race -- albeit a social construct based on some biological realities -- exists and matters, and it is not just a vestigial figment of centuries-old white racism. It is axiomatic that race is a part of our social reality; however, where we need more discussion is on precisely where race matters. The fundamental problem with race...

The California airline pilot punished by the Transportation Security Administration for posting videos critical of airport security has revealed his identity. Chris Liu, who calls himself the "Patriot Pilot," says he was just trying to improve airport security when he released a recorded and posted online footage of San Francisco International Airport in which he criticized a number of procedures. Liu had been part of a federal security program allowing him to carry a gun in the cockpit. But after he posted the video, federal agents showed up at his house Dec. 2 to confiscate his weapon and suspend his...

As violent drug cartels take over Mexico and expand their criminal enterprises north, the United States has signed a “trusted traveler” agreement that allows pre-screened Mexican airline passengers to bypass lengthy airport security checkpoints. The foreigners will get “trusted traveler cards” with fingerprints and other biometric data and they must answer customs declarations questions on touch-screen kiosks before leaving airport inspection areas. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claims it’s a way to enhance information sharing and mutual security in the face of “ever-evolving, multinational threats.” About 84 million Mexicans are expected to qualify for the trusted traveler program, according to...

Baywatch babe says TSA agent picked her out of line to see her naked on full body scan. Former Baywatch actress Donna D’Errico is venting and outraged for what she says was a purposeful selection of her out of a line at a Los Angeles airport by a TSA agent, just so she could be seen naked. She’s also angry that no one told her that she had a right to opt out and choose the more friendly pat-down screening method instead. Making this, she says, traumatic episode all the worse was that she was actually traveling with her son...

After a Timely Intelligence Squared U.S. Debate, New York Audience Weighs in on the Propriety of Racial & Religious Profiling at U.S. Airports Former Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff among the Debaters Tuesday November 23, 2010 15:48:01 EST NEW YORK, Nov 23, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ...agreed with the motion, U.S. Airports Should Use Racial & Religious Profiling, 33 % were against it and 30% were undecided. After the debate, the side arguing for the motion had moved more of the audience members to their position; they ended up with 49% of the vote, 40% were against the motion and...

Partiality, favoring one thing over another, is seen in many aspects of life. Common expressions lend themselves to this: the teacher’s pet, the star player, and the best friend. We choose filet mignon over liver, mountains over plains, and trucks over VW bugs. Certainly, in life we have to make judgments. Assuming these choices are acceptable, are there times when partiality is not acceptable? Taking this question further, could profiling be considered a form of partiality? One object is given closer scrutiny than another under profiling. To be clear, I have no problem profiling terrorists or criminals. The facts are...

<p>Finally someone with some unexpected common sense. Muslim woman and author, Asra Q. Nomani displays an incredible breath of fresh air with her logic and honesty while being an interview guest on CNN.</p> <p>In response to the moderators question concerning security and profiling she says, “I am Muslim, I am brown, my father has the name Mohommad in his name and i do say profile me. Profile my family….In 1998, Osama Bin Ladin issued a fatwa that said airliners and airports are legitimate targets for good Muslims. And since then we’ve had Glasgow, we’ve had London, we’ve had JFK and we’ve had LAX…all of these have been airport plots and we’ve had airline attack attempts. So what is the one common denominator among those who are targeting airports and airlines? Unfortunately, and very sadly to me, they are Muslims. We have to acknowledge this and be honest about our threat assessment because ultimately common sense is what i think should prevail- not political correctness….I honestly believe you can be discriminating without being discriminatory.”</p>

With the Holiday season approaching rapidly, air travel has been the the center of media frenzy this past week. The hot topic involves the TSA’s “more advanced” screening techniques that have started to take effect. Post-September 11th, the TSA (Transportation Security Administration), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, was given sole authority to screen and examine all baggage and passengers on US flights. We all know and expect that security has gotten much tighter since the terrorist attacks, and rightfully so. Any American is willing to wait a little longer in lines and go through more security measures...

Israel has long held the reputation as home to the world's most stringent airport security procedures. But most passengers aren't frisked, there are no intimately revealing body-imaging scanners, and security experts dismiss as misguided the new, more intrusive American approach that requires pat-downs or highly detailed scans of every passenger. "Taking the bottle of water from the 87-year-old woman at JFK, you will never find an explosive material that is coming from bin Laden," said Shlomo Harnoy, head of the Sdema Group, an Israeli security consultancy that advises airports abroad. "You are concentrating on the wrong thing."

America must focus its finite capabilities on those who crave the destruction of planes and the people who ride them. What would that profile be? Today's threat comes almost exclusively from militant-Islamic males between about 18 and 35 who hail from the Middle East and predominantly Muslim African and south-Asian nations. This profile was not drawn by anti-Muslim bigots, nervous Jews, or paranoid Southern Baptists. The terrorists themselves created this profile. It's past time to employ terrorist profiling to shield Americans from those who want to murder us.

We tip-toe around it because we have allowed politically correct labels to make it seem to be so. President Obama, whose public approval has reached a new low of thirty-nine percent, and his administration are under fire and the consensus in the administration seems to be that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t do a good enough job of getting out in front of this story and communicating to travelers. This is the default position for the administration when political troubles arise: The product was fine, but the marketing was poor.There is an unfortunate tendency to think in terms of...

Let's acknowledge that when it comes to flying, we're all willing to make a few compromises in the interests of safety. We're willing to subject ourselves to some minor inconvenience if other passengers do the same. To be honest, we'd prefer that every stranger who gets on a plane with us go through the most stringent of tests - body scans, pat downs, strip searches and waterboarding, topped off by an interview with Jack Bauer. But unfortunately, these strangers have the right to expect the same of us. Therein lies the dilemma. How do we fashion a security system that...