The real purpose behind the imam publicity blitz

Star Tribune reported After the imams incident, it quoted Bray as saying Muslims want "new, broad-sweeping legislation that will extract even larger financial and civil penalties for any airline that participates in racial and religious profiling."

What we really need is legislation that would provide more penalties for people that threaten air travel.

The report is optimistic that Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, will lend his support to new legislation. Ellison, it says, has expressed his opposition to "such racial and religious profiling." Ellison, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

One piece of legislation in the works is the End Racial Profiling Act. It is an important priority of Rep. John Conyers of Michigan

Chief dhimmi in congress

, whose district includes one of the largest Muslim populations in the country. Conyers introduced the bill in 2004 and 2005, but it went nowhere.

Good

Now the alignment of forces may be changing. Conyers will probably be chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when the new Democratic-controlled Congress convenes next month. Nancy Pelosi, who called herself a "proud" cosponsor of the Profiling Act in 2004, is the incoming House speaker. And in January, Ellison, who represents the district where the imams incident occurred, will take his seat in Congress.

Pelosi has already made a couple of stupid moves. Supporting this legislation would be one more.

The act, although it doesn't as yet impose large penalties, would bar any federal, state or local law enforcement agency from "relying, to any degree, on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion in selecting which individuals to subject to routine or spontaneous investigatory activities." That would include questioning, searches and seizures.

Totally ridiculous. Numerical profiling might not be the best plan, but they should certainly be able to rely on those factors in evaluating who to investigate. It does not make sense to search eldery ladies, when a robust Muslim is in line right behind her.

One of the act's central features is its definition of illegal profiling. Under it, if airport security personnel question passengers who are disproportionately Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent, this alone would constitute a presumptive violation of the law. Law enforcement agencies would bear the burden of proving that discrimination was not the cause.

Totally stupid

What would the effect of such a law be?

Another 9/11. The security raised since 9/11 has prevented additional attacks, and they feel they have the right to kill Americans, and it is very unfair of us to prevent that.

"A law that would compel security professionals to focus on keeping their statistics within certain norms rather than on their mission keeping airline travel safe would have a devastating effect on our ability to ensure airline safety," said Daniel Horan of the Los Angeles Police Department in an interview. He worked at the Los Angeles airport on profiling-related issues for 6 years.

In the past few weeks the public relations campaign for the Profiling Act has moved into high gear. On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advised American Muslims to beware of the dangers of "flying while Muslim." In light of recent allegations of "airport profiling," it said, the council has set up a toll-free hotline for pilgrims traveling to Mecca for the hajj, or annual pilgrimage, who believe that their rights have been violated.

A better solution would be for CAIR to sponsor muslim only charters for the Hajj.

Allah blogged Doesn’t that actually make things more difficult for their Democratic allies in Congress? I can buy that CAIR would do this to raise their own profile; they probably are that stupid and it’s not like they have anything to lose in terms of reputation at this point. But they’ve got to know that this makes things considerably harder for Pelosi, Conyers, and Feingold in getting the bill passed. Not to mention the fact that grassroots pressure on Bush to veto the bill if it ever comes before him will be tremendous now, thanks in great part to this very incident.

CQ blogged It's no surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood and its American political arm wants an end to profiling in airport security. They do not want Muslims singled out for scrutiny. Given the Brotherhood's consideration of religious minorities in nations where they have political clout -- Egypt, Syria, and the like -- that stance is unlikely to spring from a sense of liberal altruism. The Brotherhood has a long history of supporting terrorism as a political tactic, and they would like nothing better than to leave American airliners vulnerable to exploitation.

And that's exactly what ERPA would do. It places the burden on the airlines and TSA to prove that they were not acting in a discriminatory fashion whenever they single anyone out for closer scrutiny in security checks. That means anyone can sue for discrimination and have the presumption of truth in court, a situation that would cripple flight security. With that environment, airlines and TSA would shrink from singling out anyone deemed suspicious unless their actions were so overt that they would overcome that presumption in court. It's a recipe for abject surrender on airline security, fueled by CAIR's new "flying while Muslim" hotline. Only trial lawyers and terrorists benefit from ERPA.

Dr Sanity blogged Victimhood is automatically conferred if you are a member of one or more of the following groups:

• An underrepresented race (whoever is in the minority--the majority are barred from victimhood)
• An underrepresented gender(males are prohibited from victimhood)
• An underrepresented sexual orientation (heterosexuals are not allowed to be victims)
• A nation without land (e.g., Palestinians; Note: The Kurds aren't considered victims because they aren't the right kind of victim--they admire the U.S. and aspire to democracy & freedom thus, disqualifying them)
• Any nation the U.S. has a disagreement with
• A religion stuck in the Middle Ages (e.g., Islam)
• A person in jail (your crime is immaterial, but the worse the crime, the better)

Blue Crab blogged Conyers has been trying for years to force this legislation through. Up until now it has gone nowhere. Putting restrictions on security personnel would be disastrous. If they spend their time trying to meet arbitrary statistics rather than actually focusing on keeping people safe, sooner or later somebody will slip onto an airplane that should not. It is not just the six imams, either. There is a full court press going on here with other media outlets.

Sister Toldjah blogged What was the real reason behind the six imams publicity wave?