Fingerprints and Profiles
Look who’s bolstering stereotypes
June 10, 2002 8:45 a.m.
nationalreview.com
Last Wednesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a new "National Security Entry-Exit Registration System." It would require, among other things, the photographing and fingerprinting of certain foreign visitors when they enter the U.S. if they "pose potential national security risks." In particular, the Justice Department's fact sheet states that the photographing and fingerprinting will include "Certain nationals of other countries [besides Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria, which are already on a list] whom the State Department and the INS determine to be an elevated national security risk."
We can assume that these countries are more likely to include Egypt and Saudi Arabia than, say, Monaco and New Zealand, and this has prompted predictable outcries. For instance, Rep. John Conyers, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, declared: "It is shocking that the freest nation on earth could engage in a system of racial and ethnic profiling. It is as though the equal protection clause [of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment] had no meaning or context whatsoever to the authors of this Orwellian proposal."
At the same time, conversely, the members of Congress investigating recent antiterrorist intelligence failures by the federal government say that they will be examining whether sensitivities about racial profiling hampered FBI probes of Middle Eastern suspects. Indeed, the racial-profiling hysteria has gotten so out of hand of late that even liberals like Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D., Cal.) and Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) have started to shake their heads at it.
And, in yet another related development, the ACLU and a District of Columbia civil-rights firm have brought suit on behalf of several Arab Americans and the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee against four major U.S. airlines. The individuals claim that they were illegally discriminated against when, because of security concerns, they were pulled off flights or denied boarding and given seats on later flights.
Concerning all of which, several observations.
First, racial, ethnic, and religious profiling are not the same thing as profiling based on people's country of origin when they come to visit the United States. One makes no racial, ethnic, or religious generalization when one recognizes that there are more terrorist activities, more terrorists, and poorer antiterrorist measures in some countries than in others. The Justice Department proposal, indeed, would appear to apply to anyone from a listed country, whatever his or her race, ethnicity, or religion. In all events, there is no reason to suppose that only Saudis of a particular color are going to be fingerprinted.
Second, it is ridiculous to say, as Rep. Conyers did, that AG Ashcroft's proposal is in any way unconstitutional. Bear in mind that we are not talking about U.S. citizens here. The law gives the federal government great leeway in making distinctions about who can enter the U.S. based on countries of origin. If we are at war with, say, Nazi Germany, then we can treat people from there trying to get into our country differently from people leaving England or Canada. To give another example, our immigration laws have always drawn country-by-country distinctions.
Third, it is a very fair question to ask whether concerns about being accused of racial profiling caused the FBI to shy away from pursuing certain investigatory leads. Being accused of racial or ethnic bias is unhealthy for one's career in the federal government. That's not a bad thing, except when accusations that have no basis in reality nonetheless have an intimidating effect.
If one knows that the members of a gang have certain characteristics, it is not illegal profiling to take that into account when trying to find members of the gang. The members of al Qaeda are driven by geo-religious dogma, and there is nothing wrong with recognizing that reality. When one tries to infiltrate the Black Panthers, one should be a black. When one is looking for members of a Colombian drug gang, one looks for Colombians. And when one is on guard for terrorist acts by members of a secret organization that is based in the Middle East and is anti-Israeli and Islamist, then one focuses on Middle Eastern Muslims. All this is light years away from pulling over a black motorist because statistically speaking there are in a city a higher percentage of black drug dealers than white drug dealers.
Fourth, it is not at all clear that what the airlines did when they refused to allow on board several individuals who happened to be "Middle Eastern looking" was illegal. Just because someone with certain physical features is kicked off an airplane doesn't mean that they were kicked off because of those physical features.
Fifth, even if these individuals do have a colorable claim, their lawsuits are shameful. The litigation will have the inevitable effect of discouraging legitimate security measures — and for what? Because someone had to take a later flight and has hurt feelings since he thinks he was targeted in part because he looked like he was from the Middle East. In World War II, Japanese Americans volunteered to fight for their country notwithstanding the fact that many of their ethnicity were forced to enter relocation camps. In the current war on terrorism, the response of individuals being bumped off a flight is to run not to the recruiting center, but to court with the ACLU. (Did I mention that the lawsuits ask for compensatory damages — including "humiliation, embarrassment, emotional distress" — punitive damages, and of course attorney fees?)
Finally, and likewise, it is wrong for an American of, say, Syrian ancestry to act insulted because his country is concerned about Syrian terrorists and believes there are more likely to be terrorists trying to get into the U.S. from Syria than from Finland. Putting a misplaced pride in where your grandfather happened to be born ahead of your own country's national security interests is downright unpatriotic. If, during World War II, we had special rules for those arriving from Italy, would that have justified an outcry from Italian Americans? Of course not.
The United States government has shown extraordinary solicitude after Sept. 11 to its citizens of Middle Eastern descent and Muslim faith — and rightly so. But those citizens must return the favor by acknowledging that their country has been attacked, that their government has to take realistic and legitimate steps to protect all our interests and lives, and that doing so is not a reasonable affront to any American. Those who don't, and the self-appointed spokesmen and organizations that don't, are not attacking stereotypes but bolstering them. |
