Warp wrote:
>   Stopping the police from utilizing their resources effectively sounds to
> me a lot like stopping even trying to catch illegal immigrants in practice.

BTW, profiling won't make the stopping of illegal immigrants more efficient. 
Actually involving the police only when there's a reason to suspect someone 
is an illegal immigrant will make the process more efficient.

What's more efficient? Having 100 police cars driving around looking for 
SUVs to stop, to give a breath test to those drivers?  Or having 10 police 
cars driving around, looking for *anyone* who is drifting lane to lane or 
not maintaining a reasonable speed, then stopping just the people doing 
something wrong and seeing if it's because they're drunk?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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On 2-5-2010 20:20, Darren New wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>> It is not the enforcing but the method of enforcement. That is what 
>> whole argument is about.
> 
> Hey, I know. We could get all the legal americans of central american 
> decent to wear something sewn to their clothing to show they're legal, 
> so the police would know not to bother them. ;-)

Ah, a concealed Godwin. Well done.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   So all other types of criminal profiling are ok, but not profiling based
> > on how someone looks like?

> No. It's not legal to profile anyone before a crime has been committed.

  I don't think that's the case. There are all kinds of typical profiles
of several types of criminals. For example "a serial killer is typically
a white middle-aged male".

> Nobody minds being asked to show proof of citizenship if a crime has been 
> committed, or even if a crime *might* have been committed. This law isn't 
> that. This law is stopping people just in case maybe a crime has been committed.

  Maybe it's just me, but I really don't see a difference between "might
have been" and "maybe has been"... You probably used poor wording for that.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 2-5-2010 20:43, Warp wrote:
> andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> It is *NOT* about stopping trying to catch illegal immigrants. It is 
>> about the methods allowed to do so.
> 
>   Stopping the police from utilizing their resources effectively sounds to
> me a lot like stopping even trying to catch illegal immigrants in practice.
> Sure, a few of them will still be caught, just a lot less. It's effectively
> the same thing as giving up.

As I said elsewhere random race based does not happen so your implicit 
premise is false. ATM the police is using many other methods to find 
illegal immigrants.

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Always one of the highlights of a discussion: the returning an argument. 
> Anyway, your premise is false hence nothing follows.

> BTW: I know you are familiar with the technical term for wrongly 
> paraphrasing an opponents point of view and attacking that paraphrase. I 
> also know you rather frequently accuse others of it, so why do you do it 
> yourself? IMWTK

  Your meta-argumentation and condescending attitude is quite effetively
irritating, so I suppose the best thing for me to do is to simply ignore it.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 2-5-2010 20:47, Warp wrote:

> >   Maybe I'm being dense here, but I still don't get it.
> > 
> >   He said, effectively, that trying to stop illegal immigration by doing
> > racial profiling is wrong. Did I understand this incorrectly? If yes, then
> > exactly what did he say?

> No that is what he said. Racial profiling is not allowed for illegal 
> immigration, because the profiling is not specific enough. Use of this 
> blunt instrument would also likely destabilize the society. The use of 
> it is therefore not only discouraged but in most places even forbidden.

  And I commented to that by expressing my opinion that people (not the
writer, but people in general) are really too oversensitive on things like
skin color. Then you accused me of deliberately misunderstanding what he
wrote, or something.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>>  You don't want him stopping you just because you drive a
>>> particular color car, or you're wearing a particular kind of clothing,
>>> right?
>> 
>>   If SUV drivers were statistically more likely to drive while drunk,
>> I really wouldn't mind if the police concentrated their efforts more on
>> SUVs than on trucks.
> 
> Well, it's illegal here, you see. And that's what has people annoyed. See,
> because people don't like being arrested when no crime has been committed
> because someone who shares some of the same properties they do did
> something wrong.
> 
> Basically, people here are generally against getting arrested before a cop
> knows a crime has been committed at all.

Where did Warp say SUV drivers should be arrested? Why do you keep mixing 
"concentrate efforts" or "check ID" with "get arrested" in this discussion?

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andrel wrote:
> On 2-5-2010 20:20, Darren New wrote:
>> Stephen wrote:
>>> It is not the enforcing but the method of enforcement. That is what 
>>> whole argument is about.
>>
>> Hey, I know. We could get all the legal americans of central american 
>> decent to wear something sewn to their clothing to show they're legal, 
>> so the police would know not to bother them. ;-)
> 
> Ah, a concealed Godwin. Well done.

Concealed?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Where did Warp say SUV drivers should be arrested? Why do you keep mixing 
> "concentrate efforts" or "check ID" with "get arrested" in this discussion?

If the cop asks you for your ID, and you say "I decline to show you my ID," 
do they let you go?

Guess what?  If not, you've been arrested!

That's pretty much the definition of the word: If you're not allowed to 
leave, you've been at least detained if not arrested.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   What I *am* opposing is the idea that countries should enforce their
> > laws more leniently to avoid offending people. 

> Nobody is suggesting that.  People are objecting to your assertion that 
> stopping and questioning people who look Mexican is better than stopping and 
> questioning everyone.

  Well, I suppose people have the right to think that. I'm just wondering
if that opinion comes from hard math or from political correctness. (I'm
not saying that my math is correct, mind you. I'm just saying that *if*
the math does indeed say so, then to me it would make sense to prioritize
according to the probabilities. Of course I also understand that this will
offend some people. You can't win.)

> >> Nobody is against catching the criminals.
> > 
> >   Of course they aren't against that. But at the same time they oppose
> > stricter measures which could rise the conviction rates of the criminals,
> > if doing so would offend some people. 

> It's not a matter of "offend some people."  The people you're at risk of 
> offending are the majority of the people living where the law would be enforced.

  Well, it sounds to me like offending some people.

> It's like passing a law where you are that only fair-skinned people have to 
> prove before going out on a sunny day that they have permission from a 
> doctor. As rational as it is, that's unlikely to be a popular law.

  People often take their rights to privacy and freedom very seriously.
Sometimes even when it does them more harm than good... It's not like
I don't understand that.

> >> Randomly stopping people and asking them to prove their innocence.
> > 
> >   Apparently Britain is not one of those countries?

> Apparently not.

  What I meant was if you oppose that law in Britain, and why.

> >> Consider driving. Do you want police randomly pulling you over because you 
> >> have long hair, or you're driving a red car? After all, a majority of 
> >> traffic tickets go to people in red cars.
> > 
> >   I wouldn't be surprised if the police was more likely to stop SUV's than
> > eg. trucks for random sobriety tests, purely because of statistical reasons.
> > (No, I don't know if they do, but I wouldn't be surprised if the did.)

> Not here.  It's illegal.  Why? Because people who drive SUVs didn't want to 
> get randomly stopped just because 0.1% of the people driving SUVs might be 
> intoxicated.

  Is that so? Well, then that's something I don't agree with. I'm glad if
this kind of police work reduces the risk of car accidents caused by drunken
drivers. It increases my safety alongside everybody else's.

> >   If truck drivers are statistically significantly less likely to drive
> > while drunk, that kind of selectiveness makes sense. Don't tell me it
> > doesn't.

> It doesn't, and I explained why a couple of times.

  Then we'll have to disagree on this particular example.

> >> No. You want the cop to wait until he sees you do something wrong before he 
> >> stops you, yes?
> > 
> >   Cops don't need probable cause to stop cars for a sobriety test, and
> > personally I really don't mind.

> But they don't get to profile during those stops either.

  I don't know if the police is allowed to make any kind of "profiling"
here, but regardless, to me it would make sense if they would.

  Instead of trucks, think about buses: I'm pretty sure it *is* quite
less likely for a bus driver to be drunk than a SUV driver. Additionally,
stopping a bus is a lot more inconvenient and can potentially disturb the
traffic a lot more than stopping a SUV. Hence it only makes sense that the
police skips stopping bus drivers for sobriety tests. It reduces the amount
of resources spent on statistically improbable crimes, as well as reducing
the disturbance to traffic.

> >   If SUV drivers were statistically more likely to drive while drunk,
> > I really wouldn't mind if the police concentrated their efforts more on
> > SUVs than on trucks.

> Well, it's illegal here, you see. And that's what has people annoyed. See, 
> because people don't like being arrested when no crime has been committed 
> because someone who shares some of the same properties they do did something 
> wrong.

> Basically, people here are generally against getting arrested before a cop 
> knows a crime has been committed at all.

  I'm not talking about arresting someone. I'm just talking about *checking*
the alcohol levels of drivers.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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