Re: [privacy] AP: Feds Rate Travelers for Terrorism

[<chris () loftyperch com>]

--- SDALAN04 () smumn edu wrote:

> This is definitely a moronic, republican, Americanistic, right-winged, and
> blinding example of the type of minds that rule our existing government. 

Oh, please.  Not only have you lost the ability to debate a topic rationally
(or politely, sheesh), but you espouse a set of cliche memes about as relevant
and useful as a 16th-century dictum to burn female faith-healers with warts.

If you believe that America is the heart of profiling then you likely have
never been outside of it (or your European enclave?).  As has been said by a
dear friend of mine (a Pakistani Muslim): "If 911 had happened in reverse in
Karachi, all the white people would have been burned to death in their homes. 
Here people actually *apologize* to me for occasionally singling me out!".  Ask
Chris Rock who he is looking over his shoulder for at late-night ATMs in
inner-city USA if you want to talk about profiling.  

I may not be comfortable with profiling, but I suspect at the end of the day
that may yet prove to be lingering white-liberal-guilt on my part.  I want to
find a way to discern bad-guys without ever casting doubt on a single innocent
person, but experience tells me that in my town I can reliably tell a genuine
hard-luck homeless person from a crack-head on the street with a short glance. 
Timothy McVeigh deserved a little profiling, he was ranting on Usenet for
months before killing all those kids in Oklahoma.

Everything is legitimately on the table in debating how to deal with risk. 
Even sophmoric spews like yours serve some purpose, if it is nothing more than
allowing others a metric by which to rate the value of your comments.

-chris


Chris Blask
Founder and CEO

Lofty Perch Inc

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Computer Pioneer

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chris () loftyperch com
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