The point obviously being that Muslim males committed each of the above terrorist acts. To my knowledge, the law and the courts don't condemn racial profiling because its ineffective, it is condemned because to initiate police action (whatever that phrase will be interpreted to mean by future courts) based solely on a person's race violates the Bill of Rights.

I can easily argue that the arrest and conviction rates of drug offenders would triple (or better) if the guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures were removed from the statutes and Constitution. All I would have to do is pick a person I thought might have or use drugs, force my way into their home or car and root around until I found something. No probable cause issues, no suppression hearings. All nice and clean. You find drugs, you put away the person who possessed the drugs.

As effective as that might be, the greater question is whether or not I want to live in a society governed in that manner. For me, the answer is no.

I'm certainly not advocating that law enforcement do nothing while terrorists run in our midst. The obvious approach it to use common sense. While I might not be able to use race or national origin as the sole or deciding factor, I can use my training and experience to consider that in recent history, the majority of terrorist attacks have been carried out by Muslim males between 17 and 40.

If, for example, I had information that a sudden number of Muslim males between 17 and 40 were taking flight school lessons and were only interested in learning to fly a jumbo jet and not to take off or land it, I could follow up on that tip and develop probable cause for the issuance of a warrant.

But that's just my opinion and I could be wrong.

Robert DuBoise

Does anyone think it is reasonable to target a particular nationality for search or seizure during a time that war has been declared on that nation? Isn't there a huge difference between the metaphorical "War on Drugs" and the real war on terrorism?

I realize that it has been a little tricky to identify the nationality of the enemy. Bush may some day identify Iraq as that nation. (And we certainly want to be careful about avoiding the mistakes of WWII and Japanese internment). But, I don't know of a war that didn't involve bending or breaking the rules of peacetime. That seems to be the nature of war.

Frankly, that takes most of this discussion out of the realm of criminal justice. And, I think the most recent disclosure about the person being held for planning to explode a "dirty bomb" proves my point. That person is being held without charges under rules that don't have anything to do with the Fourth Amendment.

We are beginning to recognize that we can't fight this battle within the conventional rules of law enforcement. It must be fought within the rules of war, which don't involve the niceties of the criminal justice system.

This has been an interesting discussion, but Article 2.132 provides a prohibition based on race or ethnicity. While most Muslims are semitic caucasion, there are many asian and pacific island, and sub-saharan african, i.e. black muslims. Therefore, the Muslim aviators are not categorized by race or ethnicity. No problem.

Ed Marty and Jim Huggler

Rob:

I make a factual observation: that the vast majority of mules moving dope to Houston in my neck of the woods are Hispanic. You then quote me and explain we need the racial profiling statutes to protect society from cops who think like I do: "The danger is that some lazy/non-thinking cop thinks the same thing you do," and uses race as a short-cut to find dope.

Firstly, my observation is 100% correct. For several years I've screened all the felony cases
in Refugio Co. Moreover, I have questioned all the mules who have testified at our grand juries. And I have answered all the dkt. calls. I know for a flat-out fact that the vast majority of the mules are Hispanic. Nobody in law enforcement in my neck of the woods would disagree with that.

Secondly, "lazy/non-thinking cops" don't use race to make decisions to stop, order to make lots of cases. The lazy/non-thinking cops are the ones who rarely arrest anyone. That's because they don't ask questions, they don't think in terms of patterns, and what fits and what doesn't and they sure aren't interested in climbing under an old car to thump the gas tank. No lazy/non-thinking cop would write The Phx. Memo. Instead, the lazy/non-thinking cop writes his ticket, and says "have a nice day," and leaves. Such a cop will never be accused of racial profiling. He also will almost never find any contraband.

Thirdly, the hard working/thinking cops "who think like (I) do" base their decision to stop or to ask for permission to search based on a large number of factors. Experienced cops tell me that the races tend to behave differently when they are stopped for traffic violations and they are carrying contraband. This is information that good cops use to their advantage.

As a result of these facts, hard working/thinking cops who make lots of drug busts on the highway in my neck of the woods, will necessarily stop and arrest a disproportionate number of Hispanics, and will then become potentially subject to a claim of illegal "racial profiling."

Thus the racial profiling statutes attempt to correct a non-problem (lazy cops who use race to make lots of cases)by discouraging good cops from making obvious observations about people and race because such observations are off-limits.

any body see Jay Leno Tuesday night? Dennis Miller was on with some interesting material about racial profiling. I can't retell it exactly correct, but it went something like this: He said that anyone who doesn't think racial profiling at airports is appropriate should fly the ACLA airlines: American Civil Liberties Airlines...that's the airlines that doesn't screen for anything for fear of trampling on somebody's privacy. Did a good job of reminding people of what is in the balance here.

Maybe you guys should watch cable t.v. more. There have been several discussions lately about drawing distinctions between "Muslims" or "Arabs" -- denoting religion or ethnicity -- and "Islamists" -- meaning those believing in an Islamic religion-based government. Is it racial profiling to single out people (men) who have links to Islamist governments (e.g. Iraq) and/or terrorist groups? And why in the hell was "national origin" included in that bill anyhow?? If we have a right to exclude someone from the country completely because of his national origin, why can't we be suspicious once he's here and his government or countrymen (Taliban, Sudanese, PLO, etc.) are opposed to our whole way of life?? And when did any cop ever stop someone based on national origin anyhow -- are you telling me some of our officers are so good at profiling they can tell a Mexican from a Columbian, or a Swede from a Fin, at 70 miles an hour?

Frankly, most officers now would be able to testify that they didn't know anything about the driver when he/she was stopped. Window tinting has made it very hard to tell much about a driver.

You try it while in your car. Watch a car go by a 70 miles per hour on the freeway (or in your neighborhood on a Saturday night), particularly at night. Can you tell anything about the driver?

Well, I generally can only tell from the driving when some of them are horse's butts. . .

We should all agree thet the experts in detecting and preventing terrorism are the Israelis. The Mossad has already told our government that we are on the wrong track in attempting to find weapons; we should be about finding terrorists. These terrorists fit a definite profile, one compiled by the Israelis. As a side note, the racial profiling I am most familiar with in this jurisdiction is that of the young white male cruising the "short east side" of Fort Worth. Law enforcement in that neighborhood know he is there for one or both of two purposes: prostitution/dope....

but do you think they can act on that supposition by pulling the car over the first chance they get (with a traffic violation, of course) and questioning the occupants about their intentions?

Certainly a good cop should be able to pull such an individual over, and while he's working on his traffic ticket, look the guy and his car over, and ask some simple questions. But is such an action outlawed by Art. 2.131 and 3.05 TxCCP? I would argue that since he had an objectively lawful reason for the stop--the traffic violation--then he's free to make the stop even if his primary interest in him was his age and out-of-place race. But you could argue the other way too: that because the subjective reason for the stop was in part based on race, that any evidence you uncover should be suppressed. Which is the problem with these statutes: they create a lot of ambiguity in the law, which, if decided a certain way, could destroy a cop's career.

So the smart thing for the cop to do is to let the traffic violation go. Or, if you do enforce it, don't look too hard in the car, or ask many ques tions. Write him his ticket, and let him go. Then head for the donut shop.