Terror attack Knifeman may have wanted to behead Victim

[Jason]

Profiling is precisely about pulling data from past events.

Data that comes from the private domain of private citizens. The right to privacy is the only ward against the infringement of the right to free speech which is the cornerstone of our civil liberties. Once it becomes acceptable to infringe on privacy and categorize people this and that and enact policies of surveillance and governance upon them accordingly our right to free speech becomes curtailed - at best your are now free to speak in the same sense you're free to rob a store at gun point; which is to say not free at all under the law. Now what's to stop a Sethian government from using this tool they have to target Marxists or people who are pro-gun control? Public outrage in a culture that has had its right to free speech abrogated? I think not.

Any abuse of profiling is the result of adding an additional element that has nothing to do with profiling.

Any abuse of a tool is the result of adding an additional element.. I think it is better not to give over to our government acceptance of such a dangerous and destructive tool.

It is one thing to realise that most suicide bombers are Muslims. It is quite another to convince the broad masses that therefore the Muslims at large are evil suicide bombers and consequently must be fought tooth and nail, oppressed and perhaps even annihilated.

It's not about convincing people of the evils of any particular group, it's about allowing the abrogation of liberty to secure a little security. It's about allowing a dangerous and inherently destructive tool to exist in our society.

[Hermit]

Profiling is precisely about pulling data from past events.

Data that comes from the private domain of private citizens.

No. Data come from public events. As an example I have cited the preponderance of suicide bombers turning out to have been Muslims twice now. You clearly don't know what profiling is about. The Free Dictionary defines it as The use of data compiled about people who have committed criminal offenses in the effort to describe or identify the most likely suspects in a particular crime.

[Jason]

I'm talking about the use of Personality (behavioural) Profiling as is used to identify and classify persons as potential terrorists so they may be put under surveillance or worse, as we both well know. Its targeted use in law enforcement is not new - it has been used for decades to evaluate the culpability of suspects for years. It is not the simple use of statistics about previous crimes to identify common characteristics in perpetrators - it is much more. It is the use of data gathered about a person to evaluate them against the profile built - supposedly - by statistical analysis of the data gathered about the common characteristics of perpetrators. It is exactly as I have described - a vile infringement of privacy and a systematized abrogation of the right to privacy and the ensuant abrogation of the right to free speech.

I don't appreciate you insinuating that I don't know what profiling is or pulling an argumentum ad dictionarium.

[JimC]

Agreed in theory, and certainly there are, of course, many moderate muslims, whatever Scumple and Seth claim...

However, it remains true that there are currently a lot more muslims that believe in the death sentence for apostasy, and would enact it, than there are christians who would be happy to follow your apt biblical quote...

Quite so. Is this in any way justification to treat all Muslims, the vast majority of whom are not extremists as if they were, you know, like, just in case?

Clearly not, but it is justification for increased surveillance, and real penalties for those who can be shown clearly have endorsed or supported jihad...

Yes, profiling, though regarded ass objectionable by some, adds effectiveness to crime fighting. What I oppose is the attitude that it is OK to regard all Muslims as extremists, or at least treat them as such just in case they are. You might remember we had the same idiotic attitude here in Australia when we were hit by a wavelet of refugees during the Lebanese civil war, half of whom were not even Muslims.

Allowing behavioural profiling (spying on your citizens, or spying on the citizens of another country in a spy exchange- which is what is actually done today) is allowing a social pruning tool that can be used to target any group for any behaviour. First they came for the terrorists and I said nothing because none of my friends where terrorists..

No. I don't think so. I'm happy to face the problems of the world without sacrificing liberties or laying tracks for any future regime to drive into those liberties at a whim.

All I mean by surveillance here is careful intelligence gathering on those with a potential to commit terrorist attacks in the name of Allah. Unavoidably, this means gathering intelligence from and within muslim communities. Not much point in wiretaps within the buddhist communities in the west...

[Seth]

Profiling of suspects is perfectly reasonable. Profiling of non-suspects is not.

Here's the thing though: If you don't want the police to take an interest in what you're doing, then don't do things that interest the police...like attend mosques where treason and sedition are preached.

If you do, then screw your privacy rights because you have engaged in actions that make you a suspect, at which point the police have every right and authority to "profile" you just as they have every right to "profile" organized crime suspects or outlaw biker gang members.

All the police have ever had to have in order to open an investigation is a reasonable suspicion that you are, have been, or are going to be involved in the commission of a crime, and plotting to violently overthrow the government of the United States, which is a basic precept of Islam, is the crime of treason. Therefore gathering together with others to discuss the use of violence to subjugate infidels and install the Caliphate in the US is conspiracy to commit treason, which is more than enough reasonable suspicion to open an investigation and "profile" every single person who walks into that mosque in excruciating detail using whatever surveillance methods are necessary to either incriminate or exclude them as suspects and obtain probable cause to arrest them.

If you don't want to be surveiled or profiled, then stay the hell away from places and people who preach and conspire to sedition and treason, and turn them in to the authorities when you encounter them.

When you lie down with pigs, you get covered in the same pig shit they excrete and are covered with. So don't lie down with the treasonous pigs of radical Islam, particularly if you are a "peaceful" Muslim who is genuinely interested in peaceful coexistence with others. Turn them in so they can be removed from society.

[Sean Hayden]

-meh, hung out with a few Syrian refugees at Thanksgiving, they seemed alright to me. Should I just turn myself in now?

[Seth]

-meh, hung out with a few Syrian refugees at Thanksgiving, they seemed alright to me. Should I just turn myself in now?

Dunno. Did you conspire with them to violently overthrow the government and install sharia law and the Islamic Caliphate?

[Sean Hayden]

[JimC]

It's no laughing matter...

[Sean Hayden]

I know, people are getting scary.

[Brian Peacock]

-meh, hung out with a few Syrian refugees at Thanksgiving, they seemed alright to me. Should I just turn myself in now?

Ah, but you cannot know that they weren't not not terrorists, therefore Anthrax.

[Jason]

If it's brown and in a gown send it to anthrax town.