"Mitty" wrote in message
...
On 12/20/04 3:47 PM, wrote the following:
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 21:26:33 GMT, Mitty wrote:


Unfortunately, "effective" is also known as "racial profiling".

Another case where political correctness has subverted simple logic.

Even children don't go fishing in areas where there are no fish because
it's a waste of time and money.

However, to be "PC," it is national policy that we waste huge amounts of
time and money searching people who have a negligible chance of being
hijackers. Which, of course, reduces the time and money available to
actually work on catching potential highjackers. Net result: Less
safety, higher cost.



depends on whose ox is being gored.

I suspect there would have been a hue and cry from young white
christians if we had singled them out as terror suspects after McVeigh
and Nichols bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City.


The point is that (1) if you have a valid way to subset your population
that (2) gives you a significantly increased probability of finding the
bad guy because you can afford to expend more screening effort on the
subset -- then (3) you should do it.

Said less abstractly: If there are places in the lake where fishing
effort has a significantly higher probability of producing fish, then
those are the places to go fishing.

To your point: Assuming the selection of the subset is valid from a
statistical standpoint, it is irrelevant whether the members of the subset
"raise a hue and cry" or not.

To your implication that selecting young white Christians is logical: A
single crime committed by two members of a huge class is probably not a
valid reason to select the class for extra screening.

The arguments in the posts below, especially those about screening young
Muslim males versus screening pilots, all implicitly accept the idea that
we should be trying to fish where the fish are. It can also be true that
it is difficult to figure out where they are. That does not make it any
less desirable to do so.

so profile towards Muslim pilots its not a case of either / or