Is ABC News committing racist fearmongering regarding the airliner bomb attempt?

[alp227]

On the ABC News Nightline Twitter feed, it linked to a blog entry on the ABC News site titled "Closing Arguments: Time to Profile Passengers?" As far as I see right now, the majority of comments agree with that question. Arguments attempting to justify racial profiling at airports include: "Political Correctness has gotten us into this position where terrorists are flying and legitimate passengers are grossly inconvenienced" and that profiling should have started after 9/11.

Hmm, people seem to be bringing up PC a lot! WARNING: BIGOTED COMMENTS AHEAD! IF YOU CAN'T STAND POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS, RUN!!!!!

One commentor tried having it both ways:

I believe that people who fit the profile of a terrorist should be watched more closely during airport screening, and they should all be required to walk through the new full body scanning machines. This would be common sense, not racism, and we should not be concerned about "political correctness". We should be concerned only with safety! This would be common sense, not racism, and we should not be concerned about "political correctness". We should be concerned only with safety!

And then there are those who just hate hate hate "sensitivity":

Absolutely. We should have been profiling all along instead of putting as much wasted effort as we do into 'screening' equally simply to be politically correct.

Fact is profiling is effective. It's not pretty and it casts shadows. But it works.

It may not be fair to some ethnic or religious groups, but frankly I don't care. This country's safety, and that of it's citizens, myself included is MUCH MORE important

And then there's race-baiting:

Yes, all of the terrorist have been Muslim since 9/11. So why not target them.

Profiling is a very important tool in our quest to stay safe from jihadists. I am 100% in favor of profiling.

Bigotry ends here.

Someone tried reasoning:

Absolutely NOT!! How are you going to feel when it's you that has been profiled? Or your mother? Or your sister? Or your child? And you, or them, are bent over a table in a back room being cavity searched because you look like/have the same name as a supposed terrorist?

I'll give you one person who's a textbook example of racial profiling gone wrong: Indian actor Shahrukh Khan! He got detained at the Newark (New Jersey) Airport for 3 hours for questioning by immigration officials. Khan was working on his movie My Name is Khan.

News"! I thought that such a question and discourse would only come from that brain-frying website called "The Fox Nation", which is a blog/forum site run by Fox News. As Media Matters and News Hounds have exposed, Fox Nation is a big pool or garbage.

[FrenchieCat]

1. What's gonna happen when a teabagger tries to blow up a plane,

what could be these folks' plan B? :shrug:

[Jamastiene]

3. Nothing.

As a general rule, our government refuses to acknowledge domestic terrorism.

No matter how many Timothy McVeighs or Eric Rudolphs attack our own country, they never call it domestic terrorism or treat it as the terrorism that it is, unfortunately. Hate groups are allowed to continue to plot against our own government with no real effort at defending the country against attacks from them.

[alphafemale]

2. I'm not concerned that ABC doesn't edit out offensive Twitters linked to a linked Blog

I think I would be more alarmed if it did.

[Syrinx]

4. What is a "no-fly list" good for, when he wasn't on it?

Why was he allowed to get on that plane after his own father told them that he was a radical threat?

[JCMach1]

5. It basically IS no good... Anyone with any experience with Arabic names would know this...

I have taught around 10 Mohamed Mohameds over the last 6 yrs.

Not to mention the Mohamed Al Mohameds



Oh yeah, then there is the fact they love to constantly morph and spell their names differently.

I would like to smack the genius that thought a database would be a solution...


It would be a solution, but only if based on biometrics.

[Kablooie]

6. Profiling should be done when there is evidence that someone has terrorist connections.

Like the panty waste bomber.

It seems if they are on a danger list, those are the people they AREN'T profiling.