[geeks] Rights abuses was: Glad I don't live in Texas!

[kamakazi]

Actually I have more problems with strip searching "perfectly
able-bodied people who fit a 
reasonably suspicious profile for terrorism" without specific evidence
toward that individual.  After all, we as Americans (generalizing here)
brag that our forefathers died to win us freedom, well, why should
keeping it be free?  I personally am much more concerned right now with
profiling and rampant searches/taps/surveillance of people based on
vague profiling than I am with terrorism.  Why should I as an able
bodied white male with reasonably short hair be any less likely to blow
up an airplane than a middle-eastern college student who happens to have
a big beard and wear a turban, or to drop back a few years to another
stereotype, a big black guy with a muscle shirt and big hair, or to drop
back again, a guy who happens to express his opinions that capitalism
hurts the common man, and hints that more stuff should belong to the
people as a whole.

I don't mean to start a flame war, but my countries internal reaction to
11 sept. has disappointed and angered me.  I really hurt for the honest
Arab-looking students right now, whether they were born here, are
actually Arab, whatever their political world view.  I look at recent
history, and I see two large terrorist attacks in temporal proximity,
but comparing the reaction to OK City to the reaction to WTC, one of
them is seriously out of proportion.

I am also not advocating complacence, I just hate profiling and
unlimited investigative powers.  Didn't we just have a huge stink about
NJ police profiling for traffic stops etc?  And now as a nation we are
"all for it"

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
OK, the red tinge is fading from my vision, my skin is no longer green,
darn, got to get new clothes again.


oh, and to reply to the part I quoted, able bodied people go through
standard security measures, metal detectors, bomb sniffers, etc.
wheelchairs are less convenient to inspect.

Tim   

On Wed, 12 Jun 2002 22:52:49 -0400
Andrew Weiss <ajwdsp at cloud9.net> wrote:

> This nation is pretty skewed as far as priorities go.  Look at airport
> 
> security for instance... passing perfectly able-bodied people who fit
> a reasonably suspicious profile for terrorism while they pat down 80
> year old women in wheelchairs....
> 
> Andrew