On 3-5-2010 22:40, Darren New wrote:
> 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.

I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the 
society as a whole even more.

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> The procedure is this: 

Yep. That's pretty much how it works here, at least in theory. Of course, 
who is going to check?

If the traffic rate is too high, it's also OK to stop every Nth person. But 
you don't get to pick who you stop *after* you see them. You make the list 
of which cars you'll stop before you even set up the blockade.

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

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> 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.

  You didn't understand me. I do not distinguish race as being any more
or less relevant than any other feature.

  If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race can
be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
same. I don't make any special distinction.

  Or in other words, I'm not hypersensitive about talking about race, as
so many other people seem to be. To me it's just as incosequential as a
subject as hair or eye color.

  If the distinguishing feature of some statistic happens to be race, and
you really want to call it "racial profiling", then I suppose I can't stop
you. It's just that the term "racial profiling" is always used in a very
negative sense, like it was a thousand times more outrageous than making
a statistic based eg. on gender or age groups. To me it's all the same.
I don't make any special distinction between them.

  I wish everybody else was like that too. I wish the world was a place
where you can talk about human races, make statistics about them and
whatever, freely and without any kind of worry, because it's just as
inconsequential as gender, age or shoe size.

  But no. If you start talking about races, making statistics and profiles,
you are immediately labeled as racist. Sheesh.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the 
> society as a whole even more.

It depends on whether you believe you caught the right person in the first 
place.

What lots of people seem to be forgetting in this thread is that by far, the 
vast majority of the population is *not* breaking the law.  If there were no 
limits on the techniques the police could use to find criminals, then the 
99% of the people who are law-abiding would be subject to the same problems 
as the people who aren't. And the 99% of people who are law abiding are 
willing to let the guy with an open bottle of beer in the car go, so they 
don't get stopped and have the police rip *their* car apart in order to see 
if maybe there's any pot in a little baggy in the door panel or something.

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

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   You didn't understand me. I do not distinguish race as being any more
> or less relevant than any other feature.
> 
>   If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race can
> be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction.

Every feature you mentioned is part of "race". It's all based on genetics.

Was this intentional, or did you also want to include, say, style of 
clothing, amount of taxes paid last year, which God you happen to worship, etc?

>   If the distinguishing feature of some statistic happens to be race, and
> you really want to call it "racial profiling",

People only call it that when the feature you're profiling for hasn't 
anything to do with race. If you're talking about Tay sachs, nobody 
complains about racial profiling.  It's when you're talking about criminal 
behavior that people complain about racial profiling, because the two are 
unrelated.

>   I wish everybody else was like that too. I wish the world was a place
> where you can talk about human races, make statistics about them and
> whatever, freely and without any kind of worry, because it's just as
> inconsequential as gender, age or shoe size.

And when it's inconsequential, people don't mind. If police profiling was 
inconsequential to the people whose race is being used as the bad guys, 
nobody would complain.

>   But no. If you start talking about races, making statistics and profiles,
> you are immediately labeled as racist. Sheesh.

No, it's when one starts talking about races and arresting people based on 
that race that people label one racist.  A doctor who says "blacks are more 
likely to get hernias than whites" or "jews are more likely to get Tay Sachs 
than chinese", nobody labels him racist.

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

Post a reply to this message

On 3-5-2010 23:12, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but 
>> the society as a whole even more.
> 
> It depends on whether you believe you caught the right person in the 
> first place.

The assumption was that they caught somebody with illegal substances, so 
yes they caught the right person.

> What lots of people seem to be forgetting in this thread is that by far, 
> the vast majority of the population is *not* breaking the law.  If there 
> were no limits on the techniques the police could use to find criminals, 
> then the 99% of the people who are law-abiding would be subject to the 
> same problems as the people who aren't. And the 99% of people who are 
> law abiding are willing to let the guy with an open bottle of beer in 
> the car go, so they don't get stopped and have the police rip *their* 
> car apart in order to see if maybe there's any pot in a little baggy in 
> the door panel or something.

You don't have to convince me. I just tried to explain what the problem 
might be. It is very common for people to not understand this (or that 
sentence ;) ). Often an underlying cause is that they see police as an 
abstract group outside and above the society and not realize that 
everyone of them is human. (Though, I assume nobody would express it 
that way).

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 16:49:54 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> If the profile is "looks Mexican" and the policeman picks based on
>> "Mexican-looking guy walked past" then it's racist.
> 
>   In the technical sense maybe, but the policeman didn't necessarily do
>   it
> with a racist mindset. Maybe he doesn't care what color, height or shoe
> size someone has, as long as the law is enforced.
> 
>   You can argue that profiling people like this is not the best and most
> efficient way of doing it, but why must racism always be assumed?

Because the law is crafted to require that the police discriminate based 
on race and nothing else.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 17:03:24 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> 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.
> 
>   You didn't understand me. I do not distinguish race as being any more
> or less relevant than any other feature.

So are you changing your view?  Otherwise I don't understand the 
statement you made earlier about "if 90% of illegal immigrants are of 
Mexican descent, then you should check them more frequently" (not an 
exact quote, but you did make a statement to that effect).  You are in 
that statement making race *specifically* the *sole* reason for stopping 
someone to ask for proof of citizenship.

>   If hair color can be used for some statistic, then so be it. If race
>   can
> be used for some statistic, then fine. I don't care. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction.

Similarly, you couldn't say "people with black hair should be stopped to 
see if they're illegal immigrants" because the fact that they have black 
hair has no bearing on whether or not they're illegal immigrants or not.

Let's be clear here:  The odds of catching someone as an illegal 
immigrant are statistically low by profiling based on race, hair colour, 
eye colour, or any other physical trait.  It's not like 75/100 of people 
of Hispanic descent in Arizona are illegal immigrants.

The law is very similar to laws enacted in WWII regarding internment of 
people of Japanese descent here in the US.  Or laws concerning the 
identification of slaves in early US history that were based on skin 
colour (because in general, if you were black, you were a slave).

>   Or in other words, I'm not hypersensitive about talking about race, as
> so many other people seem to be. To me it's just as incosequential as a
> subject as hair or eye color.
> 
>   If the distinguishing feature of some statistic happens to be race,
>   and
> you really want to call it "racial profiling", then I suppose I can't
> stop you. It's just that the term "racial profiling" is always used in a
> very negative sense, like it was a thousand times more outrageous than
> making a statistic based eg. on gender or age groups. To me it's all the
> same. I don't make any special distinction between them.
> 
>   I wish everybody else was like that too. I wish the world was a place
> where you can talk about human races, make statistics about them and
> whatever, freely and without any kind of worry, because it's just as
> inconsequential as gender, age or shoe size.
> 
>   But no. If you start talking about races, making statistics and
>   profiles,
> you are immediately labeled as racist. Sheesh.

That's because making a decision about someone's guilt or innocence based 
solely on the colour of their skin is a racist decision.  Period, end of 
story.  What about that don't you understand?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 22:54:20 +0200, andrel wrote:

> I guess Warp's problem is that not only the police is 'punished' but the
> society as a whole even more.

That provides the police with incentive to follow the rules.  What's 
more, if the police don't follow the rules, not only does the bad guy 
potentially get put back on the street, but the police can also be held 
liable for their noncompliance with the law - so there's a societal 
incentive for the police to follow the laws and there's a personal 
incentive.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> The assumption was that they caught somebody with illegal substances, so 
> yes they caught the right person.

Yes, but that claim is indistinguishable from not finding illegal substances 
and claiming they did.

You're saying "you let crooks go free."  I'm saying "you don't know they're 
crooks if you let the police do this."

>> What lots of people seem to be forgetting 

> You don't have to convince me. 

Sure. I was addressing "lots of people." :-)

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

Post a reply to this message