Hikind Presses For Profiling On Subway Searches
A New York assemblyman who started his political career as a lieutenant of extremist Meir Kahane called on the NYPD to use racial profiling to target “people of Middle Eastern descent” when searching bags on mass transit. The bag searches began more than a week ago.
UPI newswire quoted Assemblyman Dov Hikind as saying, “They all look a certain way … It’s all very nice to be politically correct here, but we’re talking about terrorism.” Ironically, Hikind’s profile on the NY State Democratic Committee website describes him as “A spokesman against discrimination of any kind, Assemblyman Hikind chaired the Assembly’s Subcommittee on Human Rights”
The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and Article I, Section 12 of the New York State Constitution protect individuals against unreasonable searches of their person or possessions. Further, it is illegal for police to target people for a search based on personal characteristics like race, ethnicity, or religion.
NYPD deputy commissioner Paul Brown has responded, stating: “Racial profiling is illegal, of doubtful effectiveness, and against department policy.”
There are a significant number of non-Kahanists who also support racial profiling for counter-terrorism purposes. Many of them aren’t white either.
Wouldn’t ‘racial profiling to target “people of Middle Eastern descent”‘ include Hikind’s constituency of orthodox Jews from Borough Park ?
Is this what eli means when he goes on and on about “ashkenazi privilege”?
Truth be told, commuters need to be most aware of young men praying to Allah and smelling like flower water. Law enforcement knows this, and so should you. According to a January 2004 handout, the Department of Homeland Security advises United States border authorities to look out for certain “suicide bomber indicators.” They include a “shaved head or short haircut. A short haircut or recently shaved beard or moustache may be evident by differences in skin complexion on the head or face. May smell of herbal or flower water (most likely flower water), as they may have sprayed perfume on themselves, their clothing, and weapons to prepare for Paradise.” Suspects may have been seen “praying fervently, giving the appearance of whispering to someone. Recent suicide bombers have raised their hands in the air just before the explosion to prevent the destruction of their fingerprints. They have also placed identity cards in their shoes because they want to be praised and recognized as martyrs.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07…
the brit police force has said they will not waste their time examining middle age white women when looking for terrorists. i guess the nypd doesnt care about security, only cares about pcness. perhaps after another several hundred americans are murdered by muslim-arab young ethnic looking males, the nypd might actually focus on doing its job (ie, protecting citizens). and btw, i might very well visually be targeted as a suspected terrorist, if so i don’t mind that at all, women, whitebread males, and old males of any sort should be left out of the equation (unless theyre acting suspiciously).
avi green wrote: ” i guess the nypd … only cares about pcness”
hahahahahahaha oh man that’s a good one
DOV HIKIND GET OUT OF MY NEIGHBORHOOD ALREADY!!!!
“if so i don’t mind that at all, women, whitebread males, and old males of any sort should be left out of the equation (unless theyre acting suspiciously).”
Yeah because so called white people would never commit terror. Why is it that only arabs or 3rd world peoples can be guilty of terror, but when people from European ancestry come to America, commit the largest land steal and genocide in history against its indigenous populations, enslave over 60 million African people, follow that with years of lynchings to people who courageously spoke up, has been at war over the entire globe at a constant since its inception, and throws more people in prison then any industrialized nation in the world comparable to South African Apartheid – but this isn’t terror. Am I missing something. Shouldn’t we be profiling white people? I am beiing serious. There is way more dirt on them for terrorism.
who looks guilty of terrorism?
http://www.lastoftheindependen…
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/im…
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aa…
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis…
http://www.oregonlive.com/ century/1920_intro.html
Legal Shmegal.
Its Islamic Terror. Searching Buddhist monks or Jamaican fruitmongers randomly isn’t going to solve this problem. The fact is that Muslims are causing this problem therefore Muslims are suspected. This is racial profiling, this is religious profiling. Since the source of the problem is the religion, cops should search people of that religion.
y’all miss the point of why the nypd is “p.c.” on this issue. they’re doing random searches. which means if they open your bag and find any kind of contraband, you’re going to central booking. they couldn’t care less about terrorism — because there hardly is any. (did you know that every terror cell that’s been busted in the u.s. actually hasn’t been a terror cell?) this is just an excuse to pick people up for drug possession and other non-violent crimes.
a) searching a person based upon their ethnicity alone is subjecting them to an unreasonable search as prohibited by the 4th amendment. the 4th amendment insures that one can not be searched without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been (not will be) committed by the individual in question.
b) stbity, tell me, how many times in your life have you been illegally searched by a nyc police officer?
“this is just an excuse to pick people up for drug possession and other non-violent crimes.”
I think you are mistaken here, as individuals have the right to refuse searches and walk away (unlike the policy in Israel). The searches are intended as checkpoints to prevent terrorists from detonating themselves on the trains themselves. Unfortunately, random searches cannot be effective for this purpose.
http://www.flexyourrights.org/…
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
The fact of the matter is that these random searches do not actually increase security, with or without profiling. In fact, there is no way to be secure against suicide bombers. The best way to fight back is to simply not fear them. The goal of a terrorist is to disrupt your normal way of life by inducing terror. If you aren’t afraid, it doesn’t work. They become frustrated and you win. The only purpose of these searches is to make people feel safer. But at the same time it maintains that constant level of fear. Every time a person sees a police officer they remember that they are not invincible. Culture of fear, power of nightmares and all that stuff.
So if the searches you are performing don’t actually increase security you should not profile. As at least that way you tread on everyones civil liberties equally.
“reasonable suspicion that a crime has been (not will be) committed by the individual in question”
Making bombs and carrying them into subways is a crime (even if it doesn’t go off) and individuals fitting the profile of an Islamic terrorist could reasonably be considered suspicious under the 4th amendment. Many moderate Muslims actually favor such policies.
As Robert Lederman wrote in the essay I linked to from the story:
“Iraq is occupied by more than 150,000 heavily armed US troops with the right to search anyone at any time. It also has from five to twenty horrific terrorist attacks a day. Israeli security forces are on a much higher level of alert than anything here in the US and Israel has routine terrorist attacks. Russia has the KGB and China has the world’s largest police and security services, yet both remain subject to terrorist attacks. Within the US more than one million incarcerated Americans are strip searched, monitored by closed circuit TV and otherwise watched 24 hours a day, yet most manage to have routine access to knives, illegal drugs and other contraband. Could even the extreme scenario of turning the entire US into a prison stop terrorists?”
Straphangers seemed resigned to random bag searches Friday as police across the region stepped up transit security in response to the new round of attacks in London.
[…]
Random searches also are being conducted on buses, ferries, the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad. Anyone who refuses a search won’t be allowed to ride. Those caught carrying drugs or other contraband could be arrested.
NY Daily News
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nyclu: searches unconstitutional
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Similar to US alcohol prohibition of the 1920’s, current drug prohibition legislation breeds police corruption and abuse. A 1998 report by the General Accounting Office notes that on-duty police officers involved in drug-related corruption engage in serious criminal activities such as (1) conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures; (2) stealing money and/or drugs from drug dealers; (3) selling stolen drugs; (4) protecting drug operations; (5) providing false testimony; and (6) submitting false crime reports.
drug policy alliance on police corruption
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lots more from cannabis culture magazine
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previously:
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police may use drug-sniffing dogs during routine traffic stops, even when officers have no reason to suspect the vehicle is carrying narcotics.
By a 6-2 vote, the justices reversed an Illinois Supreme Court ruling that said the use of a dog wrongly converts a routine traffic stop into a drug investigation. The high court said a dog’s sniff is not intrusive enough to amount to a search that violates the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches. The majority said that a motorist does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy for contraband hidden in a trunk or other location that would be detected by a dog.
Dissenting Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter said the ruling could lead to dog-accompanied drug sweeps of cars that are parked along sidewalks or in parking lots, and they questioned whether it could give police more latitude to use dogs to look for drugs among travelers’ belongings.
usa today
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but no — i’m a paranoid LLL, and i have NO GROUNDS AT ALL for believing the cops would use this is a pretext to bust minorities for drug posession. i’m a disgrace to liberals everywhere.
asshole.
P.S. what’s the US government got to say on the issue of profiling?
“The use of race, ethnicity, gender, age, or income status as a characteristic in general enforcement is illegal and undeniably discriminatory. Bias-based traffic enforcement is inconsistent with the most valued principles of policing. It is an indefensible police tactic that lurks behind the guise of enforcing the law.”
US Dept. of Transportation
In his Address to the Joint Session of Congress in 2001, President George W. Bush declared, “Too many of our citizens have cause to doubt our nation’s justice, when the law points a finger of suspicion at groups, instead of individuals. All our citizens are created equal and must be treated equal. It’s wrong and we will end it in America.â€
How about the International Ass’n of Chiefs of Police? They’re a bunch of longhair liberals right? 🙂
” Every police agency should have a policy, which clearly prohibits bias policing. The International Association of Chiefs of Police reaffirms its long-standing position against biased enforcement or any other type of discriminatory practices. “
Aditya Maharjan, 42, a Hindu immigrant from Nepal who works at Curry in a Hurry in Manhattan, supported Hikind.
“If they can maintain safety, then we’ll be safe, too,” said Maharjan, even as he acknowledged that his skin color could single him out for such profiling. “Security is the most important thing.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0…
Danny Derfstein, 22, a Jew from Long Island who works at a graphic design company in Manhattan, criticized Hikind.
“If they stop terrorists, then drug dealers could be caught, too,” said Derfstein, even as he acknowledged that his dreads and Bob Marley t-shirt could single him out for such profiling. “Getting stoned is the most important thing.”
Dickforce wrote “Aditya Maharjan, 42, a Hindu immigrant from Nepal who works at Curry in a Hurry in Manhattan, supported Hikind. “
To me it doesn’t seem very convincing that the best you can come up with to counter posts from experts in the US government and law enforcement communities with some Nepalese guy who scoops curry onto plates for a living.
“However, many law enforcement disagree with the use of ethnic profiling as a security tool.
‘The Arab-American community in the United States and Muslim community in general is highly assimilated, very American, not radical,’ says Charles Strozier of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. ‘There’s no reason to believe that it is from this community that you’re going to find anyone who is likely to be a bomber.’ ”
source: Hikind Stands By Call To Employ Racial Profiling In Subway Searches
your respect for civil liberties, dickforce, is staggering. there is no chance the behavior will stop terror. it will only be used to ensnare non-violent drug offenders which account for 85% of all criminal activity.
mobius – Really I think the whole drug issue is a red herring and basically irrelevant. In my opinion the central issue is: if we destroy our basic constitutional rights in an effort to slow down terror then what exactly are we fighting for in the first place ?
The NYPD can and should investigate any suspicious activity, but the Fourth Amendment prohibits police from conducting searches where there is no suspicion of criminal activity.
“Empowering police officers to conduct random searches of individuals without suspicion of criminal wrongdoing constitutes a gross infringement of the fundamental rights and liberties of persons living in a free society,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union
“To me it doesn’t seem very convincing that the best you can come up with to counter posts from experts in the US government and law enforcement communities with some Nepalese guy who scoops curry onto plates for a living.”
I thought John Brown was a “Man of the People”.
(‘Curry-scooper’? Yikes.)
And I’ll keep in mind your respect for expert opnion next time you make your case for whatever conspiracy theory du jour you’re promoting.
When there is a suicide attack in the NYC subways, I think many prominent civil libertarians will change their minds in a jiffy…like they are doing now in Britain. (I wonder…have the London papers devoted any page space to how the bombings may effect weed dealers?
The fact that you think you did proves that you are most definitely “dorot material.”
The fact that you think this is a ‘put-down’ or ‘proof’ of whatever ‘point’ you were trying to make, makes you, in my opinion, most definately, a moronic asshole. Shut up.
fuck trolls.
just a final response to that jerk’s abuse:
george bush had no evidence that sadam hussein was an imminent threat to the united states, but he claimed the potential was there. we have discovered no weapons of mass destruction and no evidence of a functioning program to manufacture weapons of destruction. yet people like you got behind him and supported his attack on iraq.
it is true. i have no evidence that the nypd is conspiring to use this search as a pretext to pick up drug offenders. but the information i provided in my previous post shows that the potential exists (it was even overtly stated by the daily news that people caught for unrelated crimes would be arrested) — and, in fact, the information i provided is more solid and more supported by prior history than bush’s case for going to war in iraq.
you’ll let the idiot prince off the hook. but my face you’ll mash in the dirt. i’m standing up for civil liberties, he wanted to bomb brown people and feed the military industrial coffers.
i guess if i was adovcating bombing brown people you wouldn’t care how dodgy my logic seems. but making sure cops don’t have more power to abuse… god, thomas jefferson must’ve been a deranged liberal too.
Woah guys, wotzup with the shitface attitude?
Nevertheless, the argument that favours racial profiling in the name of security is a dubious one indeed. Especially in the Land of the Big Brother, one needs the kind of protection your constitution affords because of the lucrative chances for people in power to push their agenda. Even if statistics favour the point that people of a certain creed carry higher association with a subjective parameter, the danger in turning that association into a guiding principle in decision making is flawed. Not just because it does abuse the right of people who don’t fit the association, but more so because the directives stemming of such assumptions are on a slippery slope to the nether regions of fascism. It is the perceived danger of terrorism that targets young brownies; it was the perceived danger of monetary ‘blood sucking’ that targeted Jews not so long ago in one of the most cultured countries at the time. ‘Perceived danger’ is never clear from the powers to be interest in the big picture – their big picture – and in your case it is an oily slippery slope that dictates the shrieking paranoia of ‘them and us’.
Terrorism does exist, but specifically in the States it is much lower a risk then most places, not least because of the correlation between empty stomachs and rage. Suicide bombing as we know it was originated by the Tamils in Sri-Lanka (the infamous vest first worn by the one who killed Rajiv Ghandi). According to Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, “The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.†(Interview here – http://www.amconmag.com/2005_0… and to all the hacklers who love berating soft liberals please note the site was founded by the likes of Pat Buchanan…).
Wobbly side-stepping the issue of catching whooping pot-heads aside, the real danger to democracy is in the making of laws that differentiate – indeed segregate – people by anything else than a proven track record of abuse to the greater good. That is not to say that a system should not search for solutions to dangers/problems in advance – just that those solutions should hold the same principles that govern the laws holding democracy in place. Besides the ethical wrangling, the most ignored point is that ultimately (and collectively) you get what you give. In an interview with the BBC on Hardtalk, the economist Jeffery Sachpointed out that in 2004, the US government spent 500 billion dollars on making war and only 16 on assisting development* – out of $11.75 trillion GDP!. Brownie points (searched, frisked and neutralised) to the person who knows which stats. is going to come back and bite us all in the arse?
mea culpa: no more racial profiling, lets have our police look at all those 80 year old ladies on walkers instead of 24 year old arabs, good use of police time.
Well, I hope all you civil libertarians take as militant a stance on this as on anything else. http://www.ynetnews.com/articl…
terrorists on their way to carry out attacks shave their beards and dress in western clothes to avoid getting noticed. Searching religious muslims would not only be a wrong committed against muslims, but would lead to searching of religious Jews, Sihks, and just about anyone else who doesn’t look WASP. If they look for secularly-dressed “suspicious-looking” people they’ll have to stop latinos, italians, greeks, jews, arabs, persians, indians, turks (you think they’ll care about the distinctions; if someone is not black or east asian they’ll be suspected of terrorism).
Michael, that is an articulate and well thought out statment. The best I’ve read on the issue in awhile actually.
And, am not surprised that it was essentially entirely ignored by the Fearful Ones in the usual manner.
(sigh)
mobius – i thought you banned avi. any chance of that blessing happening again? He is such a snatch.
he has to start insulting people first.