On Sun, 02 May 2010 03:05:24 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   So all other types of criminal profiling are ok, but not profiling
>   based
> on how someone looks like?
> 
>   I really think this is political correctness getting in the way of
> criminal investigation.

No, but being brown isn't a crime.  What about that do you not understand?

Jim

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Warp wrote:
>   That may be so, but it doesn't invalidate what I said. I said "*if* the
> distinguishing feature happens to be ethnicity". I didn't claim it *is*.
> Try to finally get your thick skull out of the "Arizona law" thing and read
> what I'm writing.

OK. Why would you even use ethnicity as an example, and reject or ignore 
other examples?

And why would you argue against the *best* example of distinguishing 
feature, which happens to be probable cause?

That's why I'm confused.

And, in this instance, "racism" isn't necessarily a bad word. It's just 
using someone's race to target them for presumtions about the likelihood 
they'll behave in a certain way.

>> I'm confused. The only distinguishing feature you have mentioned in this 
>> whole thread is ethnicity, and my bringing up other distinguishing features 
>> is called "outrageous", and we're talking about how to catch criminals.
> 
>   What the fuck are you talking about?

Sorry. You said "outlandish", not "outrageous."

>   And where have I use the word "outrageous", and what does it have to
> do with anything?

I quote:  (You posted at 4:58 by my clock, to help you find it.)

 > > And you still didn't answer whether you'd agree that it might be more
 > > efficient to target people in churches than people who look central
 > > american. :-)

 >  I found it so incoherent and outlandish that I didn't know what to say.
 > Maybe that's what you were after.

Why did you say that targeting people in churches is outlandish and 
incoherent even if most illegals are christian, while it's perfectly 
reasonable to target ethnicities if most illegals are of a particular ethnicity?

If you had said "Yes, that's another excellent example", then I'd say "OK, 
he's talking a particular example when he says how they look." But you seem 
to be thinking that targeting how people look is a good idea for efficiency 
and targeting how people worship is a bad idea for efficiency.

Again, if we've miscommunicated, then that's fine.

-- 
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 Sun, 02 May 2010 02:12:55 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sat, 01 May 2010 17:10:09 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   How can you compare asking someone's ID to putting someone in
>> >   prison?
>> > Aren't you exaggerating a bit here?
> 
>> NO!  That's the point - if you LOOK like an illegal immigrant, you have
>> to provide on the spot PROOF that you're not, and if you can't, YOU GO
>> TO JAIL.  That's what the law is all about.
> 
>   Well, there are basically two options:
> 
> 1) Demand that all people always carry a form of identification. 2) Stop
> trying to catch illegal immigrants.
> 
>   Which one do you prefer? I assume you understand the consequences of
> choice #2.

There's no point in arguing this with you any more as far as I'm 
concerned.  You deal strictly with absolutes, and this is an area where 
there are no absolutes to deal with.

Jim

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On Sun, 02 May 2010 02:46:04 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> Good guess and said better than I could but I just don't want anyone to
>> live in a Nazi state.
> 
>   I think this is a genuine instance of Godwin's law.

I think it's actually a genuine instance of *not* Godwinning a thread by 
invoking the Nazis - it's a perfect example.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> You said
> >   Take 100 illegal immigrants. If 90 of them are of mexican origin and
> > the rest are of European origin, you certainly *can* distinguish the majority
> > of them by how they look.

> This is factually incorrect, *if* you have 10,000 mexicans and 30 europeans 
> in the community you're policing. You will spend 10,000 investigations to 
> catch 90 illegal immigrants if you investigate the ones who look mexican, 
> while you'll spend 30 investigations to catch 10 illegal immigrants if you 
> investigate all the europeans.

  I find it amusing how you manage to both claim that the math says it's
not possible to use statistics to catch illegals more efficiently *and*
then you present how you can, in fact, use statistics to catch them more
efficiently.

  But at least you admitted that my math was not flawed, although a bit
indirectly. "This is factually incorrect if ..." means "that example is
correct, but if you have this another situation, you need a different
formula".

  Bottom line is, it's just like I said earlier: You are taking my simple
example, showing that the same formula does not work on a more complex
situation (and even giving a more working replacement), and then somehow
arguing that the math is showing that statistics can *not* be used for
this purpose. Still a non-sequitur.

> >> B) there are dozens of traits more useful for distinguishing legal from 
> >> illegal residents than looks.
> > 
> >   That may well be true.

> Yet acting on that is "outrageous"?

  Where did you invent this "outrageous" word from?

> >> Concentrate on people who look mexican?  Bad idea!
> > 
> >   Maybe it's a bad idea, but not because of statistics, but because of
> > people's feelings and sense of privacy. That has nothing to do with math.

> Yes, really, it does.  You have absolutely no idea whether genetics is the 
> best distinguishing factor, yet you take an example of a different 
> distinguishing factor as "outrageous".

  Seems like you have a new obsession with a fancy word you conjured up from
somewhere.

> Racism: Assuming people of a particular genetic background share a common 
> (usually negative) trait unrelated to their genetic background.

  And who is making such assumptions here?

> >   Statistical profiling based on ethnicity might be *technically* labelled
> > "racism" in the sense that it segregates people based on ethnicity. However,
> > if it's purely hard neutral statistics, there's no prejudiced intent. It's
> > simply the result of keeping up records and calculating the statistics from
> > them.

> Yet, when I apply exactly the same neutral statistics to religon instead of 
> genetics, it becomes outrageous and unthinkable?

  You really got infatuate with that odd word, it seems. And now also with
"unthinkable"? Where did that one come from?

> >   One could argue that keeping statistics based on ethnicity is wrong, but
> > curiously that happens only if the statistics make *certain* ethnicities
> > look bad, while with other ethnicities it's ok. 

> We're not talking about that here.

  Making ancillary comments on things is not allowed?

> And certainly keeping statistics on ethnicity when you're talking about 
> something genetic is different than when you're keeping statistics on 
> ethnicity when you're talking about something entirely unrelated to genetics.

  Seems like "genetics" has become a third pet word for you. Also of
uknown origin.

> >   Statistically speaking it would be better to check only the christians
> > if we want to maximize the success rate of 100 random samples.

> Then why did you call it outrageous?

  This is approaching OCD levels.

  Exactly where did I use the word "outrageous"?

> Note that if you're changing your mind about this, saying "I've changed my 
> mind about this" is a good thing at this point.  Otherwise, I'm going to be 
> confused about whether you've reconsidered and changed your mind or not. 
> Because it sounds like earlier today you said "that's outrageous" and here 
> you seem to be agreeing with me, so now I'm confused.

  You indeed seem to be very confused. I have not used such a word anywhere.

  When did you last sleep?

> >   You are arguing that "there are too many christians and there aren't
> > enough resources to check them all, hence it would be inefficient".

> No, I'm arguing that if you're going to use something like that, then the 
> most efficient property to use is one that most illegal immigrants all share 
> and that most legal residents don't share. And "looking mexican" isn't on 
> that list.

  You talk like I had said "looking mexican is the most distinguishing
feature of American illegal immigrants".

> > I didn't ever claim that checking all people of a certain group would be
> > *the most efficient* way. I said that it would be *more efficient* than
> > purely random checks. There's a difference between "more" and "most".

> Sure. But it's still far below "checking people who have done something that 
> leads you to believe based on their *behavior* that they might be illegal 
> aliens."

  At least you somehow admit understanding what I'm writing. Except when in
a next post (or even next paragraph) you won't, and keep talking like I had
said something like "mexicans have criminal genetics" or whatever bullshit.

> >>>   Maybe it could be a good idea to change that, then? It's not like it's
> >>> something unheard of.
> > 
> >> Welcome to democracy.
> > 
> >   Democracy implies no citizenship-proving ID?

> It does when the citizens consistently complain and vote against 
> citizenship-proving ID. (To be clear: Of course we have citizenship-proving 
> ID. We're just not required to produce it on random demand by police.)

  Well, I suppose citizens get what they want, even if it wouldn't always be
on their best interest.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sun, 02 May 2010 01:43:24 -0400, Warp wrote:

> >   If he is an illegal immigrant, why should the country he illegally
> > entered take responsibility? It's his own country's problem.

> Because that's the way the world works, Warp.  In fact, some people who 
> immigrate legally or illegally no longer have a country of origin because 
> their country simply no longer exists....so what do you do with them?

  Maybe that's how it works in practice. It still doesn't mean it's fair
in my opinion.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sun, 02 May 2010 15:57:59 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   Well, it sounds to me like offending some people.

No, it's not about offending people, it's about the fact that in the US 
the constitution specifically prohibits the police from pulling people 
over "just because".  They have to have a reason, and that reason has to 
be related to a specific criminal activity.  In the US, "probable cause" 
is NOT met by having a certain skin colour, period, end of story.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sun, 02 May 2010 02:46:04 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> >> Good guess and said better than I could but I just don't want anyone to
> >> live in a Nazi state.
> > 
> >   I think this is a genuine instance of Godwin's law.

> I think it's actually a genuine instance of *not* Godwinning a thread by 
> invoking the Nazis - it's a perfect example.

  No. Godwin's law says: "As an online discussion grows longer, the
probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

  It's precisely a comparison which was not made to invoke the law, but
came as a result of the discussion. In fact, I think there's someone else's
corollary that says that a deliberate invocation of Godwin's law isn't.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 07:39:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   I said that if the vast majority of illegal immigrants can be
>   distinguished
> by how they look, it makes sense to concentrate more on those people
> than on people who are much less likely to be illegal immigrants.

And yet you don't think that this is racist.  Amazing.

Jim

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On Sun, 02 May 2010 02:35:56 -0400, Warp wrote:

> 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?

He's presuming you're guilty, because he has to have probable cause to 
pull you over to ask if you're legally in the country.  Being brown isn't 
sufficient.

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

It is.  You fail to see it or understand it.

>> 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.

Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.

>   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.

Nobody that you're aware of, perhaps.

>   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.

You're not allowed to profile in the US based on religious beliefs, 
ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other factors.  Just like you can't use 
those to make hiring decisions.

>> 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.)

Well, then, come on over here and I'll see to it that you're asked hourly 
to provide proof that you're here legally.  Including in the middle of 
the night, just for safety's sake.

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   That may be so, but it doesn't invalidate what I said. I said "*if* the
> > distinguishing feature happens to be ethnicity". I didn't claim it *is*.
> > Try to finally get your thick skull out of the "Arizona law" thing and read
> > what I'm writing.

> OK. Why would you even use ethnicity as an example, and reject or ignore 
> other examples?

  Why does it matter what was used as an example? What does it matter if it
was ethnicity, weight or show size? Ethnicity happened to be part of the
original discussion.

  I'm not rejecting nor ignoring other examples. I have *given* other
examples, such as profiling based on gender or vehicle type. Of course
you dismissed those examples as invalid, and are now claiming that I'm
"rejecting or ignoring other examples".

  I think your problem is that you are too obsessed with ethnicity. Whenever
someone talks about ethnicity, it must always be "racism".

> And why would you argue against the *best* example of distinguishing 
> feature, which happens to be probable cause?

  And why would you invent arguments I have neved presented?

> That's why I'm confused.

  It certainly seems so.

> And, in this instance, "racism" isn't necessarily a bad word. It's just 
> using someone's race to target them for presumtions about the likelihood 
> they'll behave in a certain way.

  "Racism" is exclusively used as a negative and derogatory term. There are
no neutral uses in practice.

> >> I'm confused. The only distinguishing feature you have mentioned in this 
> >> whole thread is ethnicity, and my bringing up other distinguishing features 
> >> is called "outrageous", and we're talking about how to catch criminals.
> > 
> >   What the fuck are you talking about?

> Sorry. You said "outlandish", not "outrageous."

  Yes, "outlandish" as in "strange", something which confuses because it
seems so out-of-place. In this case referring to an argument which seems
so detached that it's hard to understand how it's connected to anything.

> >   And where have I use the word "outrageous", and what does it have to
> > do with anything?

> I quote:  (You posted at 4:58 by my clock, to help you find it.)

>  > > And you still didn't answer whether you'd agree that it might be more
>  > > efficient to target people in churches than people who look central
>  > > american. :-)

>  >  I found it so incoherent and outlandish that I didn't know what to say.
>  > Maybe that's what you were after.

  Sorry, I fail to see any outrage there.

> Why did you say that targeting people in churches is outlandish and 
> incoherent even if most illegals are christian, while it's perfectly 
> reasonable to target ethnicities if most illegals are of a particular ethnicity?

  I didn't say that "targeting people in churches is outlandish and
incoherent". I said that your question was so strange that I had hard
time understanding its connection to anything.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sun, 02 May 2010 03:05:24 -0400, Warp wrote:

> >   So all other types of criminal profiling are ok, but not profiling
> >   based
> > on how someone looks like?
> > 
> >   I really think this is political correctness getting in the way of
> > criminal investigation.

> No, but being brown isn't a crime.  What about that do you not understand?

  I didn't say being brown is a crime, nor did I anywhere even imply that.

  I don't understand your response.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

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

> He's presuming you're guilty, because he has to have probable cause to 
> pull you over to ask if you're legally in the country.  Being brown isn't 
> sufficient.

  Well, that was kind of my point: If the store clerk is not assuming your
guilt, nor is the guard at the airport, what makes a policeman checking
someone's ID different?

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

> It is.  You fail to see it or understand it.

  I suppose you are right: I fail to see the difference.

> >> 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.

> Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.

  You mean that in the US the police can construct criminal profiles on
everything else *except* skin color? Hair color is ok, as well as eye
color, the color of clothes... but not skin color?

  Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but if that really is so, it seems
like a real hindrance to police work, in the name of political correctness.

> >   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.

> Nobody that you're aware of, perhaps.

  You mean there are people who are complaining about the police investigating
only males in rape cases?

> >   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.

> You're not allowed to profile in the US based on religious beliefs, 
> ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other factors.  Just like you can't use 
> those to make hiring decisions.

  Ok, I think we are using a different meaning of the word "profiling".
It's possible I have understood the term wrongly.

  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?

  If making a criminal profile based on ethnicity is illegal, does that
mean that the police cannot say things like "serial killers are typically
white males"?

> Well, then, come on over here and I'll see to it that you're asked hourly 
> to provide proof that you're here legally.  Including in the middle of 
> the night, just for safety's sake.

  I assume you are exaggerating. I have hard time believing there are
enough policemen to do that.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> No, it's not about offending people, it's about the fact that in the US 
> the constitution specifically prohibits the police from pulling people 
> over "just because".

  Well, then it's different here, as I have mentioned with the traffic
police.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 07:39:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

> >   I said that if the vast majority of illegal immigrants can be
> >   distinguished
> > by how they look, it makes sense to concentrate more on those people
> > than on people who are much less likely to be illegal immigrants.

> And yet you don't think that this is racist.  Amazing.

  I suppose you could technically call it "racism", AS I HAVE SAID MANY TIMES
ALREADY.

  I fear that you are projecting your notions of how "racist people" behave
and what they think on me, for the sole reason that I dared to mention
ethnicity as something which could be used for illegal immigration
statistics. As ironic as that may sound, I call that prejudice.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   I fear that you are projecting your notions of how "racist people" behave
> and what they think on me, for the sole reason that I dared to mention
> ethnicity as something which could be used for illegal immigration
> statistics. As ironic as that may sound, I call that prejudice.

  Btw, do you know what I find both interesting and sad?

  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. To me it's
exactly as important and irrelevant as hair color, eye color, height, weight
or whatever. If I meet someone, or see someone working on a store, or
whatever, skin color and ethnicity is completely irrelevant to me. I couldn't
care less. At most it can be a curiosity like someone with a strange hair
color or a big nose: Curious, but irrelevant.

  I suppose one could also call me *insensitive* in this respect of not
caring. To me talking about people's ethnicities is exactly as relevant or
irrelevant (depending on context) as talking about their nationality,
gender, age, education, shoe size or favorite food. It matters exactly
as much, no more, no less. I have absolutely no qualms about using
ethnicity as a point of some argument, as I would use anything else, such
as gender, age, religion or political affiliation. I don't care. To me it's
all the same.

  So what's so interesting and sad about this? That if you really, truly
don't care about ethnicity and consider it exactly as important or unimportant
as anything else, and have no qualms in talking about it, be it positively
or negatively, you are usually considered a racist, and all kind of prejudices
about what you really think are assumed of you.

  If people want to call me insensitive, then I suppose that's fair. I suppose
I *am* insensitive because I just don't care. But calling me racist just
because I don't care is plain stupid (not to mention insulting). People who
call me racist are prejudiced, which is kind of ironic.

  But that's the modern western culture today. Either you are a devoted
anti-racism activist, or a white-power supremacist. There is no middle
ground. Especially there is no "I don't care" option.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Well, that was kind of my point: If the store clerk is not assuming your
> guilt, nor is the guard at the airport, what makes a policeman checking
> someone's ID different?

Because it's not your behavior triggering it.

If you don't want the clerk to see your ID, pay cash or walk away.

If you don't want your bags inspected, don't take bags on the plane, or 
don't take a bag at all.

How do you avoid having the policeman ask for proof of legal residence? And 
do you get to walk away if he asks and you refuse?

I can't believe you're not seeing the difference here.

>> Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.
> 
>   You mean that in the US the police can construct criminal profiles on
> everything else *except* skin color? Hair color is ok, as well as eye
> color, the color of clothes... but not skin color?

No.  Features irrelevant to the commission of crimes aren't to be used to 
stop people.

Note that there's a difference between profiling in the "serial killers are 
more often white males" case than in the "pull over white males and ask if 
they killed someone" case.  The difference is that in the first, you're 
*reducing* the number of innocent people you bother, and in the second 
you're *increasing* the number of innocent people you bother.

>   Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but if that really is so, it seems
> like a real hindrance to police work, in the name of political correctness.

No, in the name of reducing racism.

>>>   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.
> 
>> Nobody that you're aware of, perhaps.
> 
>   You mean there are people who are complaining about the police investigating
> only males in rape cases?
> 
>>>   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.
> 
>> You're not allowed to profile in the US based on religious beliefs, 
>> ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other factors.  Just like you can't use 
>> those to make hiring decisions.
> 
>   Ok, I think we are using a different meaning of the word "profiling".
> It's possible I have understood the term wrongly.
> 
>   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?
> 
>   If making a criminal profile based on ethnicity is illegal, does that
> mean that the police cannot say things like "serial killers are typically
> white males"?
> 
>> Well, then, come on over here and I'll see to it that you're asked hourly 
>> to provide proof that you're here legally.  Including in the middle of 
>> the night, just for safety's sake.
> 
>   I assume you are exaggerating. I have hard time believing there are
> enough policemen to do that.
> 


-- 
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:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> You said
>>>   Take 100 illegal immigrants. If 90 of them are of mexican origin and
>>> the rest are of European origin, you certainly *can* distinguish the majority
>>> of them by how they look.
> 
>> This is factually incorrect, *if* you have 10,000 mexicans and 30 europeans 
>> in the community you're policing. You will spend 10,000 investigations to 
>> catch 90 illegal immigrants if you investigate the ones who look mexican, 
>> while you'll spend 30 investigations to catch 10 illegal immigrants if you 
>> investigate all the europeans.
> 
>   I find it amusing how you manage to both claim that the math says it's
> not possible to use statistics to catch illegals more efficiently *and*
> then you present how you can, in fact, use statistics to catch them more
> efficiently.

No, I'm saying that the math you presented is flawed.  One more time:

You can't use the math of proportions of different subgroups of illegals to 
target which unknowns you question. You must use different proportions of 
subgroups of illegals relative to subgroups of legals.  Once you do that, 
there's no reason to favor one particular way of splitting the total 
population into subgroups over another way of splitting the total population 
into subgroups.

>   But at least you admitted that my math was not flawed, although a bit
> indirectly. "This is factually incorrect if ..." means "that example is
> correct, but if you have this another situation, you need a different
> formula".

Except that the different formula applies to things other than ethnicity. 
There are huge numbers of correlations you can make, and not knowing which 
is accurate will cause you to fail to apply the math right.

>   Bottom line is, it's just like I said earlier: You are taking my simple
> example, showing that the same formula does not work on a more complex
> situation (and even giving a more working replacement), and then somehow
> arguing that the math is showing that statistics can *not* be used for
> this purpose. Still a non-sequitur.

Except I also gave you the *best* formula, which is to *not* check randomly, 
but rather check based on the statistical relationships with the *best* 
power to make policing more efficient. And you equated that with giving up 
completely.

>> Yet acting on that is "outrageous"?
>   Where did you invent this "outrageous" word from?

Outrageous and outlandish have very similar meanings here. I simply 
misremembered which word you used.

>   Seems like you have a new obsession with a fancy word you conjured up from
> somewhere.

Now who is picking nits?

>> Racism: Assuming people of a particular genetic background share a common 
>> (usually negative) trait unrelated to their genetic background.
> 
>   And who is making such assumptions here?

Every example of policing people for illegal immigration has spoken about 
ethnicity.

Had you simply said "police should use statistical models to figure out 
which possible suspect is most likely breaking the law and concentrate on 
those," I would have said "They already do. It's called Probably Cause. And 
the current law in Arizona is targeted at preventing police from doing that."

>>>   One could argue that keeping statistics based on ethnicity is wrong, but
>>> curiously that happens only if the statistics make *certain* ethnicities
>>> look bad, while with other ethnicities it's ok. 
> 
>> We're not talking about that here.
> 
>   Making ancillary comments on things is not allowed?

I'm just trying to prevent confusion.

>>> I didn't ever claim that checking all people of a certain group would be
>>> *the most efficient* way. I said that it would be *more efficient* than
>>> purely random checks. There's a difference between "more" and "most".
> 
>> Sure. But it's still far below "checking people who have done something that 
>> leads you to believe based on their *behavior* that they might be illegal 
>> aliens."
> 
>   At least you somehow admit understanding what I'm writing. 

But that wasn't what you were writing before. If this was what you were 
writing in the first place, we wouldn't be arguing, if you agreed that 
"people of a certain group" are "people for whom you have probable cause."

Otherwise, it's prejudice, and if based on genetics/ethnicity, racism.

>> It does when the citizens consistently complain and vote against 
>> citizenship-proving ID. (To be clear: Of course we have citizenship-proving 
>> ID. We're just not required to produce it on random demand by police.)
> 
>   Well, I suppose citizens get what they want, even if it wouldn't always be
> on their best interest.

Given the history of *this* country, I'm pretty sure it's in *our* best 
interests.

-- 
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:
>   Why does it matter what was used as an example? What does it matter if it
> was ethnicity, weight or show size? Ethnicity happened to be part of the
> original discussion.

All of those examples have nothing to do with whether you're in the country 
legally.

>   I think your problem is that you are too obsessed with ethnicity. Whenever
> someone talks about ethnicity, it must always be "racism".

Not at all.

>> And why would you argue against the *best* example of distinguishing 
>> feature, which happens to be probable cause?
> 
>   And why would you invent arguments I have neved presented?

OK. At this point, you're again not answering the questions that would clear 
up the confusion, so have a good one.

>> And, in this instance, "racism" isn't necessarily a bad word. It's just 
>> using someone's race to target them for presumtions about the likelihood 
>> they'll behave in a certain way.
> 
>   "Racism" is exclusively used as a negative and derogatory term. There are
> no neutral uses in practice.

Yet you're suggesting exactly that there are neutral and even beneficial 
uses of the *act* of racism.

>>>> I'm confused. The only distinguishing feature you have mentioned in this 
>>>> whole thread is ethnicity, and my bringing up other distinguishing features 
>>>> is called "outrageous", and we're talking about how to catch criminals.
>>>   What the fuck are you talking about?
> 
>> Sorry. You said "outlandish", not "outrageous."
> 
>   Yes, "outlandish" as in "strange", something which confuses because it
> seems so out-of-place. In this case referring to an argument which seems
> so detached that it's hard to understand how it's connected to anything.

It seemed pretty obvious to me.

First, you suggest that if many illegals are of a particular ethnicity, then 
police should concentrate on that enthnicity when doing checks of illegals. 
I ask whether, if many illegals are of a particular religion, police should 
concentrate on that religion when doing checks for illegals. You refer to 
that as "so detached it's hard to understand how it's connected."

Often, around racists (and not to imply you are one), their racism seems 
perfectly normal and rational, just like around religious people their 
prejudices against other religions seem perfectly normal and rational. When 
one substitutes something other than "race" into the same formula, the 
racist will say "Why in the world do you think that's anything similar?"

>> Why did you say that targeting people in churches is outlandish and 
>> incoherent even if most illegals are christian, while it's perfectly 
>> reasonable to target ethnicities if most illegals are of a particular ethnicity?
> 
>   I didn't say that "targeting people in churches is outlandish and
> incoherent". I said that your question was so strange that I had hard
> time understanding its connection to anything.

My question was about targeting people in churches.

OK, I think I'm done here.

-- 
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:
> Once you do that, there's no reason to favor one particular way of 
> splitting the total population into subgroups over another way of 
> splitting the total population into subgroups.

Oh, and the only reason to favor using ethnicity over (say) religion, the 
kind of house you live in, the kind of job you work at, etc, is that it's 
easy to look at someone and see their ethnicity, and not so easy to look and 
see their religion, the size of their house, etc.

Which is why people who *are* racists think it's perfectly reasonable to 
base laws on that.

-- 
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:
>   I consider myself to be the exact opposite of a racist

Note that I haven't called you a racist. I've said that what you suggested 
is racist. There's a difference.

-- 
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:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Well, that was kind of my point: If the store clerk is not assuming your
> > guilt, nor is the guard at the airport, what makes a policeman checking
> > someone's ID different?

> Because it's not your behavior triggering it.

> If you don't want the clerk to see your ID, pay cash or walk away.

> If you don't want your bags inspected, don't take bags on the plane, or 
> don't take a bag at all.

> How do you avoid having the policeman ask for proof of legal residence? And 
> do you get to walk away if he asks and you refuse?

> I can't believe you're not seeing the difference here.

  I think that you are seeing a difference because you are assuming a racist
motivation for the ID check in the last case. Do you deem it completely
implausible for the police to check someone's ID for other reasons than
racism?

> >> Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.
> > 
> >   You mean that in the US the police can construct criminal profiles on
> > everything else *except* skin color? Hair color is ok, as well as eye
> > color, the color of clothes... but not skin color?

> No.  Features irrelevant to the commission of crimes aren't to be used to 
> stop people.

  "Stopping people" and "profiling" aren't the same thing.

> Note that there's a difference between profiling in the "serial killers are 
> more often white males" case than in the "pull over white males and ask if 
> they killed someone" case.  The difference is that in the first, you're 
> *reducing* the number of innocent people you bother, and in the second 
> you're *increasing* the number of innocent people you bother.

  I don't see how you are increasing the number of innocent people being
bothered when you are dropping 50% of the population from the suspects list
outright.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Why does it matter what was used as an example? What does it matter if it
> > was ethnicity, weight or show size? Ethnicity happened to be part of the
> > original discussion.

> All of those examples have nothing to do with whether you're in the country 
> legally.

  You just refuse to understand what "example" means, don't you?

  "If ethnicity is a distinguishing factor, then..." is an example. It's
not making a claim about what is and isn't a distinguishing factor.

> >   I think your problem is that you are too obsessed with ethnicity. Whenever
> > someone talks about ethnicity, it must always be "racism".

> Not at all.

  Then why do I get the feeling? Ethnicity really seems to be a touchy
subject.

> >> And why would you argue against the *best* example of distinguishing 
> >> feature, which happens to be probable cause?
> > 
> >   And why would you invent arguments I have neved presented?

> OK. At this point, you're again not answering the questions that would clear 
> up the confusion, so have a good one.

  Are we having reading comprehension problems? Or difficulties in
understanding rhetorical questions? Let me translate:

  "And why would you invent arguments I have neved presented?" means
"I have not made any such argument".

  Maybe you should learn literary techniques sometime.

> >> And, in this instance, "racism" isn't necessarily a bad word. It's just 
> >> using someone's race to target them for presumtions about the likelihood 
> >> they'll behave in a certain way.
> > 
> >   "Racism" is exclusively used as a negative and derogatory term. There are
> > no neutral uses in practice.

> Yet you're suggesting exactly that there are neutral and even beneficial 
> uses of the *act* of racism.

  Firstly, I'm not suggesting that (and I'm getting really tired of you
claiming I do, over and over), and secondly, you are comparing apples to
oranges. I was talking about the term "racism" as being used exclusively
with negative connotations, which is why I don't appreciate you insinuating
I'm one.

  If you keep making that insinuation, I'm going to end this conversation.
I'm not going to continue this if you keep insulting me.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sun, 02 May 2010 14:47:07 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   Maybe I'm being dense here, but I still don't get it.

There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are 
looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if 
someone might have committed a crime".

To use your rape example, suppose instead of "we're looking for a white 
male because of this specific case we're looking into" the police started 
by collecting DNA samples from all white males just *in case* a crime 
were committed.

That's the difference.  What the Arizona law does is not tie the act of 
"being an illegal immigrant" to a specific instance of a crime.

Does that make sense?

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 00:49:20 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

>> The law goes further, though, by making it possible for people to sue
>> law enforcement for *not* enforcing the law - so if someone thinks
>> their neighbor is an illegal and calls the police, and the police do
>> nothing about it, then the neighbor can sue the state for failing to
>> take action (so I understand).
>>
>> Jim
> Yeah. One person put it like this: "Damned if you do, damned if you
> don't, so you are just damned 'period'."

Yep.  And a cop of Hispanic descent in Tucson has actually filed a 
lawsuit over this now.

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:39:17 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 May 2010 01:43:24 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   If he is an illegal immigrant, why should the country he illegally
>> > entered take responsibility? It's his own country's problem.
> 
>> Because that's the way the world works, Warp.  In fact, some people who
>> immigrate legally or illegally no longer have a country of origin
>> because their country simply no longer exists....so what do you do with
>> them?
> 
>   Maybe that's how it works in practice. It still doesn't mean it's fair
> in my opinion.

When it comes to the laws of the US, though, your opinion really doesn't 
matter much.  In Arizona, my opinion doesn't matter either.

Jim

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Warp wrote:
>   I think that you are seeing a difference because you are assuming a racist
> motivation for the ID check in the last case. 

No. I'm seeing a difference because in the first two cases, you're doing 
something that triggers the ID check, and refusing the ID check simply means 
you don't get to do that which requires an ID check.

In the last case, you're doing nothing that would trigger an ID check other 
than simply being, and refusing the ID check means you go to jail.

 > Do you deem it completely
> implausible for the police to check someone's ID for other reasons than
> racism?

Not at all. We call it "probable cause."  Police check ID all the time. They 
just don't do it *randomly*, nor do they do it based on your facial 
features, your clothing style, etc.

>> No.  Features irrelevant to the commission of crimes aren't to be used to 
>> stop people.
> 
>   "Stopping people" and "profiling" aren't the same thing.

If you use profiling to *not* arrest innocent people, nobody complains. 
Police do that all the time.  "Look, he's of the profile of people who 
aren't speeding. Let's not stop him."   "Look, he's of the profile of people 
who were in a different country when the store was robbed. Let's not 
question him."

>> Note that there's a difference between profiling in the "serial killers are 
>> more often white males" case than in the "pull over white males and ask if 
>> they killed someone" case.  The difference is that in the first, you're 
>> *reducing* the number of innocent people you bother, and in the second 
>> you're *increasing* the number of innocent people you bother.
> 
>   I don't see how you are increasing the number of innocent people being
> bothered when you are dropping 50% of the population from the suspects list
> outright.

By suggesting that you ask for ID without probable cause, rather than asking 
for ID only with probable cause, you are in fact increasing the number of 
innocent people you stop, because probable cause is the leading statistical 
indicator that you are indeed doing something wrong.

Driving dangerously is the best statistical indicator that you're driving 
while you've been drinking enough to make driving dangerous. Not the color 
of your car, the style of your hair, the neighborhood you're driving 
through, the number of people in your car, your age, or the color of your skin.

And we all support the sort of profiling that says "only stop people who did 
something to make you think they, as an individual and not just a member of 
a group, did something wrong."

What you're suggesting as possible efficiency improvements is statistics 
*not* based on whether the particular *individual* you're stopping is doing 
something wrong, but based on features shared in common with other 
individuals who commit a particular class of crime. And since there's no way 
to look at someone at random and determine whether anything about them other 
than ethnicity, that tends to turn into racism.

If you said "go around to companies where they're not paying the amount of 
taxes they should be based on how much product they're building and knowing 
how many workers it takes to build that product", then that isn't profiling 
any more. That's probable cause.

If you say "Go around to random companies and ask to see the paperwork on 
people who look mexican" or "go around to random companies and ask to see 
the paperwork on people who are christian", then that's not probable cause, 
that's profiling innocent people who have done nothing related to the crime 
you're checking them on.

-- 
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 13:43:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 May 2010 02:46:04 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> > Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> >> Good guess and said better than I could but I just don't want anyone
>> >> to live in a Nazi state.
>> > 
>> >   I think this is a genuine instance of Godwin's law.
> 
>> I think it's actually a genuine instance of *not* Godwinning a thread
>> by invoking the Nazis - it's a perfect example.
> 
>   No. Godwin's law says: "As an online discussion grows longer, the
> probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
> 
>   It's precisely a comparison which was not made to invoke the law, but
> came as a result of the discussion. In fact, I think there's someone
> else's corollary that says that a deliberate invocation of Godwin's law
> isn't.

Except that in Nazi Germany, this sort of thing is pretty much precisely 
what was done - racial profiling to identify those of Jewish (or other 
'undesirable') descent.

It's actually relevant to this discussion, not like other instances where 
a thread is Godwinned by a comparison that really is not realistic at all.

Jim

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> You said
> >>>   Take 100 illegal immigrants. If 90 of them are of mexican origin and
> >>> the rest are of European origin, you certainly *can* distinguish the majority
> >>> of them by how they look.
> > 
> >> This is factually incorrect, *if* you have 10,000 mexicans and 30 europeans 
> >> in the community you're policing. You will spend 10,000 investigations to 
> >> catch 90 illegal immigrants if you investigate the ones who look mexican, 
> >> while you'll spend 30 investigations to catch 10 illegal immigrants if you 
> >> investigate all the europeans.
> > 
> >   I find it amusing how you manage to both claim that the math says it's
> > not possible to use statistics to catch illegals more efficiently *and*
> > then you present how you can, in fact, use statistics to catch them more
> > efficiently.

> No, I'm saying that the math you presented is flawed.

  No, you didn't. You said, and I quote: "This is actually incorrect, *if*
you have ... etc."

  In other words. The example I gave was correct. You then presented a
*different* example where the same formulation doesn't work in the same
way.

>  One more time:

> You can't use the math of proportions of different subgroups of illegals to 
> target which unknowns you question. You must use different proportions of 
> subgroups of illegals relative to subgroups of legals.  Once you do that, 
> there's no reason to favor one particular way of splitting the total 
> population into subgroups over another way of splitting the total population 
> into subgroups.

  I don't see the logical line of reasoning there. It's a non-sequitur.

  "You must use different proportions of subgroups" -> "there's no reason
to favor one particular way of splitting over another" does not logically
follow.

> >   But at least you admitted that my math was not flawed, although a bit
> > indirectly. "This is factually incorrect if ..." means "that example is
> > correct, but if you have this another situation, you need a different
> > formula".

> Except that the different formula applies to things other than ethnicity. 
> There are huge numbers of correlations you can make, and not knowing which 
> is accurate will cause you to fail to apply the math right.

  I never said you can't use anything else than ethnicity to come up with
the formula. My example was simple for the sake of example.

  It intended to demonstrate a *point*. The numbers weren't important,
no matter how much you like to nitpick about them.

> >   Bottom line is, it's just like I said earlier: You are taking my simple
> > example, showing that the same formula does not work on a more complex
> > situation (and even giving a more working replacement), and then somehow
> > arguing that the math is showing that statistics can *not* be used for
> > this purpose. Still a non-sequitur.

> Except I also gave you the *best* formula, which is to *not* check randomly, 
> but rather check based on the statistical relationships with the *best* 
> power to make policing more efficient. And you equated that with giving up 
> completely.

  Where? All I said is that your implication "your example doesn't work in
this case" -> "statistics cannot be used at all" does not follow.

> >> Yet acting on that is "outrageous"?
> >   Where did you invent this "outrageous" word from?

> Outrageous and outlandish have very similar meanings here. I simply 
> misremembered which word you used.

  Really? I would say that outrage and strangeness are quite different
things. Not even comparable. The first describes a feeling while the second
describes the understandability of something.

> >   Seems like you have a new obsession with a fancy word you conjured up from
> > somewhere.

> Now who is picking nits?

  I'm not nitpicking. I'm amused at your curious sudden infatuation with that
word, which seemed strange.

> Had you simply said "police should use statistical models to figure out 
> which possible suspect is most likely breaking the law and concentrate on 
> those," I would have said "They already do. It's called Probably Cause. And 
> the current law in Arizona is targeted at preventing police from doing that."

  Yeah, using ethnicity as an example is forbidden because you are immediately
a racist if you do.

> >> It does when the citizens consistently complain and vote against 
> >> citizenship-proving ID. (To be clear: Of course we have citizenship-proving 
> >> ID. We're just not required to produce it on random demand by police.)
> > 
> >   Well, I suppose citizens get what they want, even if it wouldn't always be
> > on their best interest.

> Given the history of *this* country, I'm pretty sure it's in *our* best 
> interests.

  Maybe distrust of authorities is a self-feeding process which never ends.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:07:31 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> No, it's not about offending people, it's about the fact that in the US
>> the constitution specifically prohibits the police from pulling people
>> over "just because".
> 
>   Well, then it's different here, as I have mentioned with the traffic
> police.

Police patrolling the roads here can pull people over for very minor 
infractions (and in some cases, they do in order to 'get a nose in the 
door' to see if there's something illegal going on; for example, between 
Lincoln and Omaha NE, there's a stretch of road that's often used by 
people trafficking drugs.  The profile is cars with out of state license 
plates driving after a certain time at night.

The cops along that stretch of freeway will pull cars over that have out 
of state plates - but only if they have seen a *specific* traffic 
violation.  I've been stopped two or three times along that stretch for 
various things, like not staying in my lane or failure to signal for 50 
(or 100) feet before changing lanes.  It was late, I was tired; the stops 
were perfectly legitimate.

But if I had been a model driver in that section of freeway and they 
pulled me over because I drive a car that does not have NE license 
plates, *that* would be an illegal traffic stop.  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.

Jim

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:10:43 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 03 May 2010 07:39:47 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   I said that if the vast majority of illegal immigrants can be
>> >   distinguished
>> > by how they look, it makes sense to concentrate more on those people
>> > than on people who are much less likely to be illegal immigrants.
> 
>> And yet you don't think that this is racist.  Amazing.
> 
>   I suppose you could technically call it "racism", AS I HAVE SAID MANY
>   TIMES
> ALREADY.

You very specifically asked Darren "what the fuck he was talking about" 
when he made this point; show me where you said it was *technically* 
racism, because I certainly didn't see that.

>   I fear that you are projecting your notions of how "racist people"
>   behave
> and what they think on me, for the sole reason that I dared to mention
> ethnicity as something which could be used for illegal immigration
> statistics. As ironic as that may sound, I call that prejudice.

I'm not projecting anything here.  You are demonstrating an extreme 
degree of reading comprehension problems and engaging in nit-picking 
(yeah, those things you accuse others of doing) when we try to explain to 
you why it is the way it is, and what is wrong with the law.

You then proceed to throw "examples" out that are entirely different from 
what we're talking about (see my recent post having to do with the 
difference between a *specific* crime and general; you still don't seem 
to understand that investigation of a *specific* crime - like a rape 
(your example) is different than saying "hey, that person is hispanic-
looking, I should check to see if he's here legally or not".  Under US 
law, the former is acceptable, the latter is not.  Why?  Because the 
former is in the investigation of a specific crime; the latter is not.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

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.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   Why does it matter what was used as an example? What does it matter if it
>>> was ethnicity, weight or show size? Ethnicity happened to be part of the
>>> original discussion.
> 
>> All of those examples have nothing to do with whether you're in the country 
>> legally.
> 
>   You just refuse to understand what "example" means, don't you?
> 
>   "If ethnicity is a distinguishing factor, then..." is an example. It's
> not making a claim about what is and isn't a distinguishing factor.

Yes. And you understand that nobody is arguing against the examples that are 
*not* bogus, right?  Nobody thinks it's racist to arrest someone who looks 
mexican for not paying taxes, anymore than anyone thinks it's racist to 
arrest a black man for driving up on the sidewalk.

> 
>>>   I think your problem is that you are too obsessed with ethnicity. Whenever
>>> someone talks about ethnicity, it must always be "racism".
> 
>> Not at all.
> 
>   Then why do I get the feeling? Ethnicity really seems to be a touchy
> subject.

Because the bad examples you give are all examples of ethnicity, or other 
properties irrelevant to the person committing the crime and relevant to the 
group of people that person is in.

Your suggestion is you should look at the entire group of people who *do* 
commit the crime, then lump in other people that share properties of that 
same group to investigate. Except you've offered no examples of properties 
that have anything to do with the actual commission of the crime. You 
haven't offered the suggestion like "we should go look for the people who 
came into the country on a six month visa six months ago."  You haven't 
offered the suggestion of "we should visit the families of people who 
immigrated legally a couple years ago to see if they then snuck their family 
into the country."  None of those have anything to do with ethnicity.

>> Yet you're suggesting exactly that there are neutral and even beneficial 
>> uses of the *act* of racism.
> 
>   Firstly, I'm not suggesting that (and I'm getting really tired of you
> claiming I do, over and over), 

You are. You said "if 90% of the illegal immigrants are of mexican descent, 
police should focus their attentions on that 90%."   I'm sorry if you don't 
recognize that as a racist suggestion, but it is.  It's prejudice based on 
race.  Disclaiming it as a hypothetical/subjunctive assertion doesn't make 
it less racist. It just implies that maybe racism is beneficial in this 
respect.

>   If you keep making that insinuation, I'm going to end this conversation.
> I'm not going to continue this if you keep insulting me.

I'm not insinuating you're a racist. I'm stating that many of the 
suggestions you've made here are racist, namely, suggesting that ethnicity 
is a reasonable distinguishing factor for catching criminals with no 
evidence that any particular crime has been committed.

-- 
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:
> There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are 
> looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if 
> someone might have committed a crime".

  There is a difference, but I don't see the random checkings as being all
that abhorrent in all cases (as I have mentioned, here the police does
random checkings on drivers even without any reason to suspect them of
being drunk, and I think that's completely ok).

  Of course if the police abuse their rights to perform random checking
in order to harass people they don't like, that's going over the line.

> To use your rape example, suppose instead of "we're looking for a white 
> male because of this specific case we're looking into" the police started 
> by collecting DNA samples from all white males just *in case* a crime 
> were committed.

  As a side note: Why are people so afraid of DNA databanks? Why is it
such an abhorrent idea? What kind of "invasion of privacy" is having
your DNA in a databank? Exactly how does that invade one's privacy?

  Imagine that if every single citizen had to have their DNA registered,
and thanks to that the apprehension rate of rapists grows near 100%,
wouldn't that be a good thing? Not only would the rapists be all caught,
but it would also act as an effective deterrent.

  How could DNA information be misused by authorities?

> That's the difference.  What the Arizona law does is not tie the act of 
> "being an illegal immigrant" to a specific instance of a crime.

> Does that make sense?

  I suppose that that kind of law could perhaps have good intentions
behind it, but in practice it's too radical to have any chance of actually
working, even if the intentions were good. (Of course I have no way of
knowing what the actual intentions were behind that law proposal. Maybe
it *was* made by purely racist reasons.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:43:47 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> On Sun, 02 May 2010 02:46:04 -0400, Warp wrote:
> > 
> >> > Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> >> >> Good guess and said better than I could but I just don't want anyone
> >> >> to live in a Nazi state.
> >> > 
> >> >   I think this is a genuine instance of Godwin's law.
> > 
> >> I think it's actually a genuine instance of *not* Godwinning a thread
> >> by invoking the Nazis - it's a perfect example.
> > 
> >   No. Godwin's law says: "As an online discussion grows longer, the
> > probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
> > 
> >   It's precisely a comparison which was not made to invoke the law, but
> > came as a result of the discussion. In fact, I think there's someone
> > else's corollary that says that a deliberate invocation of Godwin's law
> > isn't.

> Except that in Nazi Germany, this sort of thing is pretty much precisely 
> what was done - racial profiling to identify those of Jewish (or other 
> 'undesirable') descent.

> It's actually relevant to this discussion, not like other instances where 
> a thread is Godwinned by a comparison that really is not realistic at all.

  Well, that's more or less what I said above. A deliberate invocation of
Godwin's law isn't.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 14:06:25 -0400, Warp wrote:

>> He's presuming you're guilty, because he has to have probable cause to
>> pull you over to ask if you're legally in the country.  Being brown
>> isn't sufficient.
> 
>   Well, that was kind of my point: If the store clerk is not assuming
>   your
> guilt, nor is the guard at the airport, what makes a policeman checking
> someone's ID different?

The fact that they're an agent of the state engaged in law enforcement.  
They're paid by the state to do that.

The clerk in the store is not employed by the state (well, in Utah liquor 
stores, they are), but a condition of purchase is that you be legal.  
Your options are to either present ID if asked or not make the purchase.  
The choice is not "present ID or *go to jail*.".  Huge difference.

>> >> 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.
> 
>> Not in the US, not legally.  That's the point.
> 
>   You mean that in the US the police can construct criminal profiles on
> everything else *except* skin color? Hair color is ok, as well as eye
> color, the color of clothes... but not skin color?
> 
>   Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but if that really is so, it
>   seems
> like a real hindrance to police work, in the name of political
> correctness.

Specific crime vs. assuming a crime was committed because someone looks 
hispanic.  That's the difference, and it's not about political 
correctness, it's about prosecuting *actual specific crimes*.

Look at it this way:  Someone at a border crossing spots someone of a 
specific description (or a group of a specific description - not just 
"they look Mexican", but height, weight, etc.).  Cop sees someone 
matching the description for a specific crime, that gives them reason to 
stop the person and investigate, even if they're not guilty.

Cop sees someone who is Hispanic and *assumes* they must be here 
illegally (otherwise what's their probable cause for stopping the 
person?) and asks for their papers.  That's NOT OK.  Why?  No specific 
crime was committed or reported.  The reason for the stop isn't "this 
person looks like someone who crossed the border illegally" but "this 
person looks like an illegal immigrant because all illegal immigrants are 
Hispanic" - the presumption is "they must be guilty because they're 
Hispanic" not "they match a description for a specific crime that's been 
reported".

Does that make it clearer?


>> >   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.
> 
>> Nobody that you're aware of, perhaps.
> 
>   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.

>> >   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.
> 
>> You're not allowed to profile in the US based on religious beliefs,
>> ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other factors.  Just like you can't
>> use those to make hiring decisions.
> 
>   Ok, I think we are using a different meaning of the word "profiling".
> It's possible I have understood the term wrongly.
> 
>   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.

>   If making a criminal profile based on ethnicity is illegal, does that
> mean that the police cannot say things like "serial killers are
> typically white males"?

No, but they cannot say "I must detain and/or question all white males 
because most serial killers are white males, even though nobody has 
reported a serial killer in this area."

>> Well, then, come on over here and I'll see to it that you're asked
>> hourly to provide proof that you're here legally.  Including in the
>> middle of the night, just for safety's sake.
> 
>   I assume you are exaggerating. I have hard time believing there are
> enough policemen to do that.

Well, the state of Arizona seems to think the cops there have the time to 
do this.  But now you are perhaps starting to see the problem.  There 
aren't enough cops to enforce this ridiculous law, and to do so the cops 
have to take time away from pursuing dangerous offenders because the law 
requires they investigate *every* *possible* instance of an illegal being 
in the state, and allows the public to sue the government if the police 
fail to investigate such violations.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

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.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:18:35 -0400, Warp wrote:

>   I think that you are seeing a difference because you are assuming a
>   racist
> motivation for the ID check in the last case. Do you deem it completely
> implausible for the police to check someone's ID for other reasons than
> racism?

If the reason the police have stopped someone is because they "look like 
an illegal", then that's a problem.  And since we're talking about 
Arizona SB1070 (the law in Arizona that requires police do *just this 
thing*), that's the point that's being discussed.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 03 May 2010 13:55:10 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 02 May 2010 03:05:24 -0400, Warp wrote:
> 
>> >   So all other types of criminal profiling are ok, but not profiling
>> >   based
>> > on how someone looks like?
>> > 
>> >   I really think this is political correctness getting in the way of
>> > criminal investigation.
> 
>> No, but being brown isn't a crime.  What about that do you not
>> understand?
> 
>   I didn't say being brown is a crime, nor did I anywhere even imply
>   that.
> 
>   I don't understand your response.

You've said that there's nothing wrong with law enforcement asking random 
people for their ID.  There is in the US - in order to do so, they have 
to have probable cause of the individual having committed a specific 
crime.  The police in the US aren't permitted to stop random people and 
ask to see their ID just because they feel like it.

So in order to be stopped, the individual has to have committed a crime.  
The Arizona law makes "being brown in public or private places in 
Arizona" a crime.

That's unconstitutional.

You are saying there's nothing wrong with the police asking people for 
ID.  There is in the US under US law.  So by supporting the position that 
the police can stop people "just because they match the assumed profile 
of illegal immigrants", and the only criteria for such a stop is their 
ethnicity, you are therefore saying that being brown is a crime (whether 
you say so explicitly or not), because *otherwise* what are they being 
stopped for?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are 
>> looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if 
>> someone might have committed a crime".
> 
>   There is a difference, but I don't see the random checkings as being all
> that abhorrent in all cases (as I have mentioned, here the police does
> random checkings on drivers even without any reason to suspect them of
> being drunk, and I think that's completely ok).

We do that here, too, in some places.

>   Of course if the police abuse their rights to perform random checking
> in order to harass people they don't like, that's going over the line.

And that's exactly what we disallow here.

And that's exactly what this whole immigration law is designed to 
circumvent, allowing (and even requiring) police to harass people they don't 
like or that are disliked by those telling the police to harass them.

Also, stopping everyone on a particular stretch of road at a particular hour 
is quite different than trying to stop everyone on a particular sidewalk or 
in a particular store or something like that.

>   As a side note: Why are people so afraid of DNA databanks? Why is it
> such an abhorrent idea? What kind of "invasion of privacy" is having
> your DNA in a databank? Exactly how does that invade one's privacy?

False positives, for one. The ability for anyone who already has your DNA to 
plant it at the scene of a crime is another. The fact that the DNA database 
can be hacked is a third.  Not necessarily "invasion of privacy" per se.

We dislike it because it can lead to exactly the same problem as every other 
  "register your ethnic differences with the government" has ever led to.

>   Imagine that if every single citizen had to have their DNA registered,
> and thanks to that the apprehension rate of rapists grows near 100%,

That's not how DNA fingerprinting works. You can't pick someone out of a big 
bunch of people.

Think of blood typing. You can't say "Well, the murderer was A+. Go round up 
everyone A+ and question them."  When you have a hundred million people in 
the DNA database, you're going to get tens of thousands of false positives.

And if you say "you can use it to eliminate people", that's true, but if you 
eliminate a hundred million people and end up with 10,000, when the actual 
suspect like might only be 20 people, how does that help compared to taking 
DNA samples from the 20 people?

> wouldn't that be a good thing? Not only would the rapists be all caught,
> but it would also act as an effective deterrent.
> 
>   How could DNA information be misused by authorities?

Planted on the scene of a crime. Used to round up all those pesky people of 
Arab descent.

DNA information is *already* misused by authorities. We call it "racism." 
They just didn't collect and centralize it all yet. They actually have to go 
look at you to evaluate your DNA for those purposes.

>   I suppose that that kind of law could perhaps have good intentions
> behind it,

We already have the laws with good intentions behind them.

-- 
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 Mon, 03 May 2010 16:00:13 -0400, 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.

The ends don't justify the means.  To be effective in enforcing the law, 
the police have to follow the law.  The penalty they suffer by not 
following the law is that someone who is guilty may go free - so the 
incentive is for them to follow established police procedures.  Getting a 
warrant before a search (or permission from the property owner) is 
standard procedure.

If the state doesn't follow the rules, the state doesn't get to benefit 
from the rules being broken.  Otherwise, you set up a "whoops, we'll do 
better next time" scenario that repeats itself.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

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?

  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?)

  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 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...)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 03 May 2010 15:54:06 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> There is a difference between "we have a specific crime that we are
>> looking for suspects for" and "we are doing random checking to see if
>> someone might have committed a crime".
> 
>   There is a difference, but I don't see the random checkings as being
>   all
> that abhorrent in all cases (as I have mentioned, here the police does
> random checkings on drivers even without any reason to suspect them of
> being drunk, and I think that's completely ok).
> 
>   Of course if the police abuse their rights to perform random checking
> in order to harass people they don't like, that's going over the line.

Here in the US, we're very strongly opposed to putting the government in 
a position where it can abuse its power.  There was actually a war over 
this in our history because the government that governed us was seen to 
be abusing its power.  The framers of our government decided that the 
government should not have this power because they'd seen it abused.

>> To use your rape example, suppose instead of "we're looking for a white
>> male because of this specific case we're looking into" the police
>> started by collecting DNA samples from all white males just *in case* a
>> crime were committed.
> 
>   As a side note: Why are people so afraid of DNA databanks? Why is it
> such an abhorrent idea? What kind of "invasion of privacy" is having
> your DNA in a databank? Exactly how does that invade one's privacy?

In 15 years' time, DNA is found to be unreliable for some reason.  A 
whole bunch of innocent people are convicted based on DNA evidence 
because it was irrefutable and infallible back in 2011.

So then what happens?

Again, it comes down to not trusting the government to not abuse its 
power.  It's a means of keeping government power in check.

>   Imagine that if every single citizen had to have their DNA registered,
> and thanks to that the apprehension rate of rapists grows near 100%,
> wouldn't that be a good thing? Not only would the rapists be all caught,
> but it would also act as an effective deterrent.
> 
>   How could DNA information be misused by authorities?

There are lots of ways it could be (and is) misused by authorities.  
Cross-contamination, improper labeling of the dataset - DNA data is 
supposed to be 100% accurate (or better than 99% accurate), but that's 
only as good as we know today based on today's science.  If it's 
mislabeled or miscategorized, how exactly does one challenge that if it's 
supposed to be infallible?

>> That's the difference.  What the Arizona law does is not tie the act of
>> "being an illegal immigrant" to a specific instance of a crime.
> 
>> Does that make sense?
> 
>   I suppose that that kind of law could perhaps have good intentions
> behind it, but in practice it's too radical to have any chance of
> actually working, even if the intentions were good. (Of course I have no
> way of knowing what the actual intentions were behind that law proposal.
> Maybe it *was* made by purely racist reasons.)

Nobody here (as far as I know) has said it doesn't have good intentions 
behind it, but that doesn't make it a good law.  I've actually read the 
law, and while it doesn't specifically say "those of Hispanic descent are 
subject to being stopped", it does IMHO cross the line by making it a 
"specific crime" to "be" in Arizona illegally.  First, that's already 
covered by Federal immigration laws, but the law sets the police up so as 
to be required to engage in racial profiling.  Even the governor of AZ 
(who signed the bill into law) has said she doesn't know how the law 
should be enforced without using racial profiling - but she signed it 
into law anyways.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

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.

  (And yes, I know that the current politically correct multiculturalist
dogma is that "races do not exist". This is motivated only and purely
because of aversion towards racism. "Race" is in no way a negative notion
any more than "nationality" or "gender". Multiculturalists have given it
a bad name because racists use it as an excuse for their bigotry, and
they make it sound that even acknowledging human races to *exist* is
racism all in itself. Bollocks.

  At least wikipedia doesn't seem to have a problem in explaining "race" as
pertaining to humans.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   In other words. The example I gave was correct. You then presented a
> *different* example where the same formulation doesn't work in the same
> way.

No, the example you gave was wrong.

It's like you saying "Every adult is over six feet tall."  I'm saying "No, 
that's factually true only if you pick adults for your sample set that are 
all over six feet tall."

>>  One more time:
> 
>> You can't use the math of proportions of different subgroups of illegals to 
>> target which unknowns you question. You must use different proportions of 
>> subgroups of illegals relative to subgroups of legals.  Once you do that, 
>> there's no reason to favor one particular way of splitting the total 
>> population into subgroups over another way of splitting the total population 
>> into subgroups.
> 
>   I don't see the logical line of reasoning there. It's a non-sequitur.
> 
>   "You must use different proportions of subgroups" -> "there's no reason
> to favor one particular way of splitting over another" does not logically
> follow.

You split the population of size Z into several groups, A, B, C.  Your 
suggestions for splitting criteria have most frequently been based on 
ethnicity or other properties not having to do with behavior.

Each subgroup, A, B, C, has two portions:
A' - The people in group A who are legal residents.
A'' - The people in group A who are illegal residents.
B' - The people in group B who are legal residents.
B'' - The people in group B who are illegal residents.
Etc.

The likelihood of success of stopping a person in group A and finding an 
illegal resident is not in the proportion A'' to Z, as your flawed example 
suggests. That's where I said your math is bogus.

The success is in proportion of A'' to A' (or A'' to A, depending how you 
want to measure proportions). That's the correction I applied to make it 
possible to do the statistics you wanted to do.

However, the choice of which individuals go into group A and which 
individuals go into group B and so on is most efficiently made by making A'' 
very large compared to A while making B'' very small compared to B. Then you 
can stop people in group A and efficiently find lawbreakers, while leaving 
group B alone.

The *most* efficient way to do that is to have group "A" be "the individual 
people we have actual reason to suspect are breaking the law", with group 
"B" being "the people who are doing nothing to arouse suspicion."  And this 
is a division you can't make base on the genetics, age, or any other factor 
of the person in question that the person in question cannot control.

There's no reason to *logically* believe that splitting A and B based on 
ethnicity is better or worse than splitting A and B based on religion or age 
or neighborhood of residence or value of automobile being driven.   There's 
no reason to believe and no statistics to support that anything you can tell 
simply by looking at a person has any correlation with their illegal 
immigrant status.

>   It intended to demonstrate a *point*. The numbers weren't important,
> no matter how much you like to nitpick about them.

The numbers *are* important. See above.

Now, if you're suggesting that the police should concentrate their attention 
on groups of people who demonstrate through their behavior that they might 
be illegal immigrants, nobody would be arguing with you.

>   Where? All I said is that your implication "your example doesn't work in
> this case" -> "statistics cannot be used at all" does not follow.

See above. I'll say it again here: The best statistic is probable cause.

>> Outrageous and outlandish have very similar meanings here. I simply 
>> misremembered which word you used.
> 
>   Really? I would say that outrage and strangeness are quite different
> things. Not even comparable. The first describes a feeling while the second
> describes the understandability of something.

They're not identical in meaning. But similar enough to be confusing I suppose.

>> Had you simply said "police should use statistical models to figure out 
>> which possible suspect is most likely breaking the law and concentrate on 
>> those," I would have said "They already do. It's called Probably Cause. And 
>> the current law in Arizona is targeted at preventing police from doing that."
> 
>   Yeah, using ethnicity as an example is forbidden because you are immediately
> a racist if you do.

Do you understand the difference between using someone's behavior as a 
trigger and using someone's appearance as a trigger? That using statistical 
models based on statistics that are too vague for the crime being committed 
is a bad idea? That 99% of every person you stop is going to be here 
legally, and that using statistics not based on individual behavior to 
narrow that down in any significant way isn't going to work?

It's not just ethnicity. It's anything that's irrelevant to the actual crime 
under consideration. It would be just as bad if you targeted the people in 
red automobiles, because that hasn't anything to do with the crime either.

>> Given the history of *this* country, I'm pretty sure it's in *our* best 
>> interests.
> 
>   Maybe distrust of authorities is a self-feeding process which never ends.

They have to start being trustworthy before we can start trusting them. I'm 
pretty sure it works both ways. Just like in clean cities, people put their 
trash in the trash cans in public. In cities where there's already trash all 
over the ground, people don't bother.

If we didn't get screwed by trusting our leaders, we'd be more likely to be 
trusting. But trustworthy leaders ought to be able to lead even in an 
environment of distrust.

-- 
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 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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