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As you all know, Muslims (indeed, Middle-Easterns in general, oftentimes) are often singled out for extra inspection in places such as airports, customs, and in the name of homeland security, et cetera.

Short question: Given the fact that modern-day terrorism stems largely from the Middle East, is it acceptable to be stricter on Middle Easterns in regards to security matters?

Discuss.

(I'll chime in after a few responses get in)

My stance has always been that Middle Easterners should not be targeted above anyone else, but unfortunately, the situation has become very complicated in recent years.

It seems racial profiling has been practised by the authorities since.... well... always. At times this practise is motivated by prejudice, but at other times, it's based on demographic data which may show that one specific racial group commits more crimes.

It's not right for anyone to be "singled out" for any reason. If they didn't commit a crime, the authorities should not be harassing them more than anyone else. Background checks should not be made without serious reason to believe that person might have done something. Deeds, not skin colour.

The complication of the issue comes in the fact that terrorist leaders also understand this and often use people with no criminal records. For this fact, I agree with and support the (pain-in-the-a**) practise that airports have begun to use... randomly making in-depth security checks every once in a while. However, they need to choose who they check blindly, rather than making decisions based on race.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to correct the current problem of racial profiling. It will continue as long as there's problems occurring in the Middle East.

An important thing to remember is that profiling is a real necessity for law enforcement to do their job. Profiling serves to guide you to the most likely subjects to commit a crime and is an invaluable tool. When it becomes a problem is when that profiling is unjustified; when profiling is done correctly, however, it serves to increase the chances and awareness of catching the right people who might be a party to terrorism.

It is difficult to say if the profiling against Muslims is of the correct kind or of the unjustified kind; it is probably a little bit of both. There can be no doubt with regards to whom conducted terrorist attacks that a profiler rightfully is suspcious of a particular racial group since statistically that's where the threat is largely coming from. It's important to not let this degrade into bigotry and prejudice, though. Human beings have a tendancy to make those kinds of connections, for better or for worse. On the one hand, historically it has served to protect ourselves but also served to create more autrosities out of ignorant assumptions.

They still, of course, detail individuals who don't fit the profiles at airports all the time. Heard a tale the other day about a friend's grandma getting detained for the random inspection. Heheh.

No bashing 24. No matter how political it gets, the cinematography and writing is absolutely divine.

I personally have no issue in screening Middle-Easterns (being one myself). It is a fact that the Middle East provides us with a more-than-unhealthy chunk of our terrorism. It's nice and idealistic to say that it it's bad to profile, but, in certain cases (where the vast majority of terror in a certain part of the world is coming from another, much smaller part of the world), profiling may be necessary. Unfortunately, these terrorist psychos don't tattoo big targets on their foreheads. If they did, racial profiling would be a non-issue. However, when the likelihood of the next terror attack being perpetrated by Middle Easterns is as high as it is now, not putting the Arab on the plane through extra screening is a stupid idea.

It's a sad thing that profiling needs to exist, but it exists for a reason.

Really? I wasn't in class today, so I (or anybody else in the guild) don't know what he said. I hoped you took notes for me. If you did, post them in the thread, instead of keeping them to yourself, would you, please?

You know, tanning oil can go a long way in covering up your identity.

Well, inforcantly, I didn't take notes. See, this is how the class works. We are posed to be on a normal school topic with notes, then someone makes a comment. The teacher jumps into action and argues the topic until the person is confused. By the time this is over, half of the classtime is over. Its not that bad actually, it keeps me awake.

The issue is humanpower. There isn't enough of it and there are not enough screeners. I was having a conversation about this the other day with someone who briefly worked in airport security. It isn't a well-paying job so people don't want to stay in it. There aren't enough people to do massive screenings and new training has to be done constantly from the high turnover.

No its not acceptable to be stricter on Middle Easterns, the reason is that anyone could do something a terrorist would, so just singling out someone based off of there race is just plain out stupid, meaning no offence.I hope I have answered this question correctly and made my views clear.