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View Poll Results: Was Romney right, that we should profile based on religion and country of origin?
London taught us a lesson--only by actively profiling can we distinguish good Muslims from bad.
11
40.74%
Profiling to an extent is ok, but entirely random investigations are counterproductive.
15
55.56%
We should not tolerate profiling under any circumstances.
Friday, September 16, 2005 4:43 p.m. ET
By THEO EMERY Associated Press Writer
BOSTON (AP) -- Muslim groups and civil libertarians demanded an apology from Gov. Mitt Romney on Friday for his comments about wiretapping mosques and monitoring foreign students. But the governor refused, saying he was only advocating for improved homeland security.
The groups delivered a letter to Romney that said "your desire to wiretap mosques is an affront to the values and principles that make America a great country." The groups include the American Civil Liberties Union and various mosques and Islamic organizations.
Romney made the remarks Wednesday during a speech in Washington at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. He referred to the state's 120 colleges and universities and speculated about students who are from countries that sponsor terrorism, asking "Do we know where they are, are we tracking them?"
He also spoke about gathering intelligence at mosques "that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror."
"Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping?" he asked. "Are we following what's going on? Are we seeing who's coming in, who's coming out? Are we eavesdropping, carrying out surveillance on those individuals from places that sponsor domestic terror?"
Romney, who is considering a run for president in 2008, said Friday morning he wasn't suggesting anything beyond the scope of what's done by the FBI today. But some Muslims said that Romney is stereotyping all Muslims as terrorists and promoting dangerous policies that erode civil liberties.
Hamza Pelletier, spokesman for the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said his group planned to attend all of Romney's public appearances until he retracts the statements.
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This issue is certainly the pink elephant in the room that most politicians seem not to enjoy discussing...
This is a case inwhich I'm not sure of which has the higher priority...security or the civil liberties of people attending mosques.
In London...the authorities understood where the extremist mosques where located...heck they were even having discussions out in the street.
Methinks I would be inclined for limited profiling during an investigation...but I don't believe I'm comfortable of just wire tapping mosques without some type of cause.
Show us that you are truly against terrorists and that you will turn people of your own religion in if they are contemplating being a terrorist and we will tone the rhetoric down. Otherwise if you live with a terrorist, you will be considered a terrorist also.
__________________
“So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldn’t find honest employment.” —Mark Twain
Show us that you are truly against terrorists and that you will turn people of your own religion in if they are contemplating being a terrorist and we will tone the rhetoric down. Otherwise if you live with a terrorist, you will be considered a terrorist also.
Couldn't that statement be applied if we change the focus of the religion to Christianity?
This is a good question. I voted against profiling, but I can understand why people would be for it.
Really, though, it seems like this is just political. Romney is ambitious and the way to win elections these days is to look tough on the terror issue.
Couldn't that statement be applied if we change the focus of the religion to Christianity?
*TimothyMcveigh*
McVeigh wasn't a Christian.
On the two great state occasions McVeigh had, at his sentencing and his execution, Jesus made no appearance in his rhetoric. At the sentencing, McVeigh quoted from Louis Brandeis' 1928 decision: "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example." McVeigh's last public act before he was executed was to distribute copies of the 1875 poem "Invictus." It begins: "I thank whatever gods may be/ for my unconquerable soul," and ends "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul" -- sentiments that to a Christian are at least vaguely blasphemous.
Ms. Bandes apparently would vote that Romeny didn't go far enough--
Quote:
It’s sad, but racial profiling is necessary for our safety
JILLIAN BANDES
LICENSED TO JILL
September 13, 2005
Editor’s note: Ms. Bandes has been dismissed from her columnist position since the publication of this column. It was found, after receiving numerous reports, that the quotes used from the various sources quoted were taken out of context and linked to statements they did not or do not support. The quotes from Mr. Khaki, Salameh and Professor Isleem were not meant to support Ms. Bandes’ statement that Arabs should be sexed up.
The Daily Tar Heel regrets the errors.
I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport.
I don’t care if they’re being inconvenienced. I don’t care if it seems as though their rights are being violated.
I care about my life. I care about the lives of my family and friends.
And I care about the lives of the Arabs and Arab Americans I’m privileged to know and study with.
They’re some of the brightest, kindest people I’ve ever met.
Tragically, they’re also members of an ethnicity that is responsible for almost every act of terror committed against the West in the recent past.
And in the wake of the anniversary of 9/11, I think it’s important to remember not only those who died, but how they died, why they died and where we stand now compared to where we stood then.
Four years and two days ago, we stood somewhere between apathy and ignorance. Sure, there were heinous acts of terrorism being committed in far-away lands, and sure, there was always the threat that some psychopath might do something.
After all, we’re the generation of Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber and Columbine. The news was littered with coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nerve gas on Japanese subways and terror in the Balkans.
But those attacks weren’t in the same buildings we toured on our eighth-grade class trips.
They didn’t kill 3,000 of our relatives.
They weren’t in our face.
So Bushie waged war on ’em. He set out to knock the evil off its axis, and we’re still there, duking it out.
And for good reason. You can debate a lot of things about post-9/11 foreign policy, but one thing you can’t debate is that taking out terrorists — or blatant human-rights violators — is a good thing.
You also can’t debate that of the 19 hijackers on those planes, all 19 were Arab.
And you can’t debate that while most Arabs are not terrorists, sadly, most terrorists are indeed Arab.
Given this combination, I want some kind of security.
Done in a professional, conscientious manner, racial profiling is more likely to get the bad guys than accosting my 12-year-old pipsqueak of a brother on his way to summer camp.
When asked if she had a boyfriend, Ann Coulter once said that any time she had a need for physical intimacy, she would simply walk through an airport’s security checkpoint.
I want Arabs to get sexed up like nothing else.
And Arab students at UNC don’t seem to think that’s such a bad idea.
“(Racial profiling) really doesn’t bother me,” said Sherief Khaki, a first-generation Egyptian-American and representative of the UNC-CH Arabic Club.
“So a couple of hours are wasted. Big deal.”
Said Muhammad Salameh, a junior biology major: “I can accept it, even if I don’t like it. I don’t want to die.”
Professor Nasser Isleem, a man for whom I have complete and utter respect after merely two weeks of sitting in his Arabic 101 class, said, “Let them search.”
“It depends on how I’m stopped, but if it is done in a professional manner … ”
Then he nodded.
“There were Muslims in those buildings, too.”
Some people say that racial profiling will make terrorism a self-fulfilling prophecy, or that it’s somehow unfair to designate certain individuals as being more likely to commit an act of terror than another.
They’re wrong.
If 19 blond-haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian Jews had plowed into the World Trade Center with two jumbo jets, I would demand to be interrogated every time I browsed Cheapflights.com.
After each interrogation, I would offer the official a cup of joe, then heartedly thank him for his efforts. And I would not be any more inclined to blow up innocent civilians as a result of it.
Neither would Sherief Khaki. Or Muhammad Salameh. Or Nasser Isleem.
Nearly every Arab American I’ve spoken with has done nothing but condemn the evil that was done just four years ago, and at least tacitly recognize that some profiling is necessary.
I have enough confidence in my country’s imperfect but steadfast law enforcement systems to carry out such profiling the way it should be done: in a professional and thorough manner, without going down the slippery slope of pointless and disrespectful encroachment on the livelihood or decorum of everyday Arabs and Arab Americans.
Stop, as Coulter advises, treating racial profiling like the Victorians treated sex — by not discussing the topic unless you’re recoiling in horror at the practice.
On the two great state occasions McVeigh had, at his sentencing and his execution, Jesus made no appearance in his rhetoric. At the sentencing, McVeigh quoted from Louis Brandeis' 1928 decision: "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example." McVeigh's last public act before he was executed was to distribute copies of the 1875 poem "Invictus." It begins: "I thank whatever gods may be/ for my unconquerable soul," and ends "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul" -- sentiments that to a Christian are at least vaguely blasphemous.
He was also a member, or at least had a lot of contact with several of the White Power Churchs, who have done a number of terrorist acts.
On the two great state occasions McVeigh had, at his sentencing and his execution, Jesus made no appearance in his rhetoric. At the sentencing, McVeigh quoted from Louis Brandeis' 1928 decision: "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example." McVeigh's last public act before he was executed was to distribute copies of the 1875 poem "Invictus." It begins: "I thank whatever gods may be/ for my unconquerable soul," and ends "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul" -- sentiments that to a Christian are at least vaguely blasphemous.
My bad - I should have thought better on that one.
Quote:
TIME: Are you religious?
McVeigh: I was raised Catholic. I was confirmed Catholic (received the sacrament of confirmation). Through my military years, I sort of lost touch with the religion. I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs.
TIME: Do you believe in God?
McVeigh: I do believe in a God, yes. But that's as far as I want to discuss. If I get too detailed on some things that are personal like that, it gives people an easier way alienate themselves from me and that's all they are looking for now.
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