Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> In the US, we're supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.  
> You're starting with a presumption of guilt, which goes against the 
> ideals under which this law is created.

  So if you go to a grocery store and use your credit card to buy something
and they want to check your ID to make sure you are the real owner of the
card, are they presuming you guilty until you prove you are not? Or is this
simply a security measure which, on the grand scale, benefits you as well
as everybody else?

  If you enter the country and at the airport they check your baggage using
an X-ray machine, are they presuming you guilty? Or is this just a security
measure?

  If a police officer asks for your ID to check that you have the right to
live in the country, is he presuming you guilty, or is it just a security
measure?

  You make it sound like in that last case the situation is different, for
some reason.

> Based. On. Skin. Colour.

  Why are people so damn obsessed with skin color? Criminal profiling does
not have anything to do with racism. Skin color is just one feature which
can be used for profiling.

  If most illegal immigrants happen to look similar, it only makes sense
to concentrate resources on people who look like that. It's the same as
the vast majority of rapists being male, hence it it makes sense to
concentrate resources on investigating males and skipping females. Nobody
is crying sexism because of that.

  I really think people are way too hypersensitive with any kind of
profiling based precisely on skin color. Any other type of profiling is
ok, but heaven forbid if you start using skin color as a distinctive
feature. The second you do that, all human rights are flushed down the
toilet. Sheesh.

> Nothing else.  If you *look* like an illegal, you are presumed guilty 
> until you prove otherwise.  This could be a daily occurrence IF YOU 
> HAPPEN TO HAVE THE WRONG COLOUR SKIN.

> Hell, it could happen HOURLY.

> Wouldn't that piss YOU off if YOU were constantly having to prove that 
> you were in your country legally?

  If it significantly increased my own security, I wouldn't. (Of course
I'm not saying that's the case here. I'm just saying that there are more
sides to this than an extremist political correctness.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message