Oh, the expertise of some people

While catching up on Best of the Web, I clicked over to the Washington Post editorial, Just the Facts, Mr. Ashcroft. Written by Jean AbiNader (managing director of the Arab American Institute) and Kate Martin (director of the Center for National Security Studies), it as slanted as an editorial can get, and demonstrates a marked lack of understanding simple, basic police work. For instance:

Rather than build investigations based on what is known about al Qaeda and the hijackers, the attorney general has directed the roundup and jailing of hundreds of individuals and compilation of dossiers on thousands of individuals and groups -- a dragnet targeted at the Arab American, Muslim and immigrant communities. While no one of any rational persuasion denies that Arab Muslim males perpetrated the horrific terrorist acts of 9/11, that fact hardly serves as justification for the racial profiling that characterizes initiatives coming out of the administration.

And...

Feeding volumes of data into computers, inviting the participation of untrained civilians, targeting groups on the basis of ethnicity, religion and political interests and tasking law enforcement officials with dubious interrogation duties, are not effective use of the limited, through rapidly expanding, enforcement resources.

Yet much of these actions are exactly appropriate. "Based on what is known about al Qaeda" is the precise reason initial investigations have focused on Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants. All of the 9/11 hijackers were immigrants (legal, illegal, or otherwise). More precisely, that same criminal (or, dare we say it, enemy) profile draws our attention to Saudis, since the majority of 9/11 particpants were from that specific country, where there is apparently a lack of people of "any rational persuasion," given the number of theories floated in that neck of the woods about how Israel and the CIA blew up the World Trade Center.

While it is true that Ashcroft & Co. has more information than they know what to do with, that is not a reason to stop collecting information. And it certainly sounds like a "focused investigative strategy" when you concentrate your resources on those people who match the profile of those who committed the 9/11 atrocities.

Let me shout it again: This is not racial profiling! Racial profiling, in its original and true meaning, deals with police who focus on people as potential criminals on the sole basis of their race. "Look," says Officer #1, "that driver is breaking the law." "How so?" asks Officer #2. "He's black!" explains Officer #1. That (very broad) example of racial profiling.

HOWEVER, if my suspect profile is for a black male, approximately six feet in height, driving a silver Lexus, last seen wearing tan shirt, blue jeans, possible ball cap, etc., then you'll note that the "black" portion is only one aspect of the total suspect description and profile.

All of the 9/11 hijackers were of Middle Eastern origin. They fell within a given age range, they shared a common religion, they were of a given ethnicity. They also shared a number of other common features, and when all that is combined that forms the profile.

And that's why that profile should be worked, if need be to the exclusion of other profiles, because doing otherwise does indeed squander resources, nevermind the scattered notions of AbiNader and Martin.