Did you think about that statement before you posted it?

It's one thing to trace behavior patterns that have been observed to be indicators of ongoing criminal activity.

It's quite another to pin people down because they might commit crimes. One of the niceties of the West's legal philosophy is that we are not allowed to use the police to harrass people because they look scary. They have to have actually done something. The laws against criminal conspiracy come into play here, so that well-trained investigators with good instincts and an appropriate workload can detect plans to commit crimes before the fact. These activities are themselves crimes, not the suppositions of a preemptive clairvoyant civil authority from The Minority Report.

If the 9/11 terrorists had sloppy paperwork -- and we know now that they did -- that by itself would have been an objective reason to pull them in. They would have been profiled by their paperwork, not the same thing as profiling by hair or eye color. If someone complained that they were victims of ethnic profiling, the paperwork would be the answer.

A reminder: Islam, while originating in the Middle East, is not an ethnic group. It's a religion. The fundamentalist nuts are a branch of a religion. It takes converts from anywhere. Even old ladies in wheelchairs, who may not be as old as all that.

The criminal fraternity have access to disguise and cosmetic surgery these days. And they may not even need it. Think about John Walker Lindh, with an American haircut, while he was going to mosque at home. Give him the temperament of one of the Columbine shooters. Tell me how detectable he would be by a simple-simple computer data analysis.

Timothy McVeigh did not act alone. He may not have been connected to a big conspiracy, but he was working with others. Perhaps he wasn't detectable. Why is that? Would people have looked at him differently if he hadn't been blond?

There is no excuse for this breadth of data-gathering, and we should not tolerate it. You're right -- not by the IRS, either. Though, if safety is your primary concern, remember: they got Al Capone on tax evasion.

Regards--
Mary Anne