Jim Henderson wrote:
> supposed to be 100% accurate (or better than 99% accurate), 

Read "better than 99% accurate" as "less than 3 million false positives" in 
a nation-wide DNA database.

> how exactly does one challenge that if it's 
> supposed to be infallible?

To be fair, that's a pretty damn easy thing to challenge. "Here, take my DNA 
again."

Of course, every accused criminal will try this approach, at which point, 
what did you save by doing a giant collection in the first place.

> but the law sets the police up so as 
> to be required to engage in racial profiling. 

It's also a witch-trial law. If someone reports you as illegal, the police 
are required to come and make you prove you're not.

-- 
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 Mon, 03 May 2010 16:14:31 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> the presumption is "they must be guilty because they're Hispanic" not
>> "they match a description for a specific crime that's been reported".
> 
>   Am I being too naive when I make the assumption that it is possible to
> check people's IDs without presumption of guilt nor for racist reasons,
> even if a choice is made based on typical illegal immigration profiles?

Yes.  Because in the US that is specifically not allowed because it is 
racial profiling if the illegal immigration profile is "the person 
appears to be of Hispanic descent or origin".

>   I do understand people getting angry by such actions, but I really
>   think
> it is possible to perform such checks without there being discriminatory
> motives behind. The *intent* is not to discriminate, just a honest
> intent of catching illegal immigrants. (Of course you can argue that
> this is not the most efficient way of doing that, but I'm talking about
> motivations and intent. Why is discrimination and racism always assumed
> as such? Do we always have to assume the worst about everything and
> everybody?)

Because it is racial prejudgment that brings the person to being 
stopped.  Not anything they've done, not any specific crime they've 
committed.  No probable cause for the stop.

>   That was, more or less, my original point in this entire thread, even
> if I didn't know how to express myself this clearly back then.
> 
>> >   You mean there are people who are complaining about the police
>> >   investigating
>> > only males in rape cases?
> 
>> I'm saying that you don't know the details of every investigation that
>> has ever taken place regarding rape cases in the US.  Or you have a
>> really strange hobby.  The fact that you (or I) are not aware of an
>> instance of this doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
> 
>   Of course there always are exceptions. I was talking about normal
> occurrences. I don't think it's at all usual for people to complain
> about such a thing.

I think if someone is wrongly accused (and asking for a DNA sample can be 
seen as an accusation) because they declined to provide a DNA sample, 
then yes, it would be usual to complain.  The 5th amendment of the US 
constitution allows people to decline to answer questions or to not 
incriminate themselves.

In fact, the advice I see most often from people in law enforcement is 
"don't answer questions or provide anything that could be used against 
you in any way unless you have consulted a lawyer".  The police *can* 
ask, but the citizen can refuse and require that the officer obtain a 
warrant - and in order to obtain a warrant, the police have to 
demonstrate that there is probable cause to guess that the suspect 
committed the crime - in other words, the evidence the police have to 
that point has to reasonably suggest that the person they're 
investigating committed the crime; they can't ask for it because they 
think there's a chance - they can't go on a hunch or gut feeling.

>> >   I have heard about criminal profilers on the police force who try
>> >   to
>> > get a picture of what kind of person the criminal might be based on
>> > the available clues, and this can include things like ethnicity (such
>> > as for example "serial killers are typically white middle-aged
>> > males"), but maybe that's just in TV series and movies?
> 
>> You're talking about a specific crime.  The point is that there is no
>> *specific* crime in the case of enforcing the AZ law.  In order to
>> prosecute a crime, the prosecution must be able to state with
>> specificity what crime was committed and when.
> 
>   Well, one *could* argue that illegal immigration *is* a specific,
> existing crime being committed right now... (Not that this justifies
> draconian laws and discrimination, but still...)

No, it's not a specific existing crime - because there's no date/time 
that the "event" took place.  If you can tie the person specifically to a 
specific border crossing, then yes, there is - but "just being" isn't a 
crime.

A person can't be arrested for having blue eyes because people with blue 
eyes are more likely to use drugs.  Someone with blue eyes can be 
arrested, though, if the police can show that that specific individual is 
a drug dealer.

So in order for the police to stop someone for being an illegal 
immigrant, they have to be able to demonstrate that that *specific 
individual* is *likely* to be an illegal immigrant - and that 
determination cannot be based on race, religion, or other demographic 
statistical factors (unless, again, they can point to a specific instance 
of illegal entry and say "we suspect this person entered the country 
illegally at such and such time and date and physical location.".

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:22:04 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:40:52 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist in the sense
>> >   that
>> > I *couldn't care less* about "race" or skin color or anything.
> 
>> When you say "race matters", look out, you're making a distinction
>> based on race, whether you want to admit it or not.
> 
>   On the contrary: I'm *not* making any distinction based on race. To me
> it doesn't matter what race somebody might represent.

Um, you are, if you say "90% of illegal immigrants are of Hispanic 
origin, so we should stop people of Hispanic origin in order to ensure 
they're here legally".  That's the textbook definition of racial 
profiling.

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:31:46 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> supposed to be 100% accurate (or better than 99% accurate),
> 
> Read "better than 99% accurate" as "less than 3 million false positives"
> in a nation-wide DNA database.

True....

>> how exactly does one challenge that if it's supposed to be infallible?
> 
> To be fair, that's a pretty damn easy thing to challenge. "Here, take my
> DNA again."
> 
> Of course, every accused criminal will try this approach, at which
> point, what did you save by doing a giant collection in the first place.

Unless of course the problem is caused by contamination of the crime 
scene, planting of DNA evidence, or contamination of the evidence after 
it's collected.

>> but the law sets the police up so as
>> to be required to engage in racial profiling.
> 
> It's also a witch-trial law. If someone reports you as illegal, the
> police are required to come and make you prove you're not.

Yep.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> You've said that there's nothing wrong with law enforcement asking random 
> people for their ID.

  In fact, what I have done is to oppose the idea that law enforcement asking
random people for their ID (or doing other types of checking) is *always* a
bad thing, which seemed to be what was being suggested here. That's a bit
different from claiming that it's always a good thing.

  As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see it as a
bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.

> The Arizona law makes "being brown in public or private places in 
> Arizona" a crime.

  I have hard time believing the law actually says that...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> nor for racist reasons,
> even if a choice is made based on typical illegal immigration profiles?

What do you mean by "profiles"?  And how does the policeman pick who to ask?

That's *exactly* the point in contention. What's in the profile? How do you 
know the person you're asking fits the profile?

If the profile is "looks Mexican" and the policeman picks based on 
"Mexican-looking guy walked past" then it's racist.

If the profile is "didn't pay social security tax last year in spite of 
spending thousands of dollars on his credit card" and the policeman does a 
credit card database search for people like that, then it's not racist reasons.

See?

> Why is discrimination and racism always assumed as such?

Because a person's "race" is the only thing about them that they can't 
easily change that you can recognize just by looking. These are *great* 
factors for enforcing something. Unfortunately, what it enforces is usually 
unrelated to crime.

If you had an airborne disease that only affected red-heads, that would be a 
*great* way of finding people who needed the vaccine.

>> You're talking about a specific crime.  The point is that there is no 
>> *specific* crime in the case of enforcing the AZ law.  In order to 
>> prosecute a crime, the prosecution must be able to state with specificity 
>> what crime was committed and when.
> 
>   Well, one *could* argue that illegal immigration *is* a specific,
> existing crime being committed right now... 

No. It's a category of crimes. You know only statistically whether it's 
being committed. You know there's a whole bunch of it going on, but you 
don't know a *specific* case of it. Just like you know there's muggings 
going on right now, but you don't know a *specific* victim.

-- 
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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Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> Further, under US law, 
>> if they *did* find illegal substances in my car, if the traffic stop was 
>> not legal, they would not be able to prosecute because they would have 
>> lacked probable cause to pull me over in the first place.
> 
>   That's one thing I have never understood.

It discourages the police from breaking the law in the first place. In 
practice, people aren't going to put police in jail or otherwise punish them 
for catching criminals. If you believe there should be laws like this in the 
first place, the only reasonable way to enforce them is to take something 
away from the police when they break the rules, rather than add something 
(like punishment) when they break the rules.

-- 
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 Mon, 03 May 2010 16:38:41 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> You've said that there's nothing wrong with law enforcement asking
>> random people for their ID.
> 
>   In fact, what I have done is to oppose the idea that law enforcement
>   asking
> random people for their ID (or doing other types of checking) is
> *always* a bad thing, which seemed to be what was being suggested here.
> That's a bit different from claiming that it's always a good thing.
> 
>   As I said, the police checks random drivers here, and I don't see it
>   as a
> bad thing. Hence it's not *always* a bad thing.

And over here that's not the way law enforcement generally works.  You 
seem to trust your government; over here, we tend not to.

>> The Arizona law makes "being brown in public or private places in
>> Arizona" a crime.
> 
>   I have hard time believing the law actually says that...

Not in those specific words.  The law is available online, feel free to 
read it (I have, actually).  I've read the law and I've read several 
opinions and interpretations of it that help explain what the legalese 
actually means in practical terms.

No law would be written to be overtly racist, but that doesn't mean that 
the implications of enforcing it wouldn't be.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Unless of course the problem is caused by contamination of the crime 
> scene, planting of DNA evidence,

Both of which are made much harder if you don't have the suspect's DNA 
before you examine the crime scene, note. :-)

> or contamination of the evidence after it's collected.

Yes, that too, but that's going to be a problem with most any kind of evidence.

-- 
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 wrote:
> Unfortunately, what it enforces is 
> usually unrelated to crime.

Or, to phrase that better, "usually the crime it enforces is unrelated to 
their race."

For example, it was great for catching run-away slaves.

-- 
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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