Yup. The Haitians are especially dangerous, second only to the home-grown Lutheran terrorists.
If you're going to complain afterwards that the govt didn't "connect the dots" ....
Replace [Egyptian-]muslim by whatever (asian, nigerian,
haitian, mexican, brazillian) and you have a generic
immigrant profile.
The other thing worth remembering is how the person of interest to whom the kid is linked became a person of interest. He posted a comment on reddit speculating about how easy it would be for terrorists to wreak havoc by hitting arbitrary soft targets throughout the country.
Like hiring, catching terrorists is a game where you should be willing to take a lot of false positives to avoid one false negative. But it can go too far, and people's worry is that it has done here.
Alex Jones or one of his affiliates posted an essay stating that if there truly were terrorists in America, they could suicide bomb 200 malls in a day for less than $200,000 -- and surely this would terrify the populace. We'd demand metal detectors at all public facilities. There could be a follow up attack every day. (with a "package left behind").
The end of the article goes to conclude that this doesn't happen, because the threat is not significant.
That this kid (or rather, the kid's friend) quoted a 'radical' libertarian on reddit (and didn't cite sources) HARDLY makes him a threat. Somebody at the FBI should be fired for the sheer idiocy of their profiling programs.
Having the background you have I'm sure you know which groups are more of a concern and which groups are less of a concern and to whom under certain circumstances.
Also, FWIW, "criminal profilers" were recently featured in cracked.com's "The 6 Most Statistically Full of Shit Professions" http://www.cracked.com/article_18380_the-6-most-statisticall...
In some places printing pictures of historical figures causes riots. In other places beheadings go unnoticed. So, what's your point?
What makes this racial profiling? The fact that there is a where or group by clause in the query which uses religion as an argument for matches? I would have a problem if that were the only criteria, clearly it is not because if it were all people of that religion would be under surveillance.
I would argue that those that are tasked with our security should most definitely keep an eye on and know what is going on with Muslims both home and abroad. This is not to say that all Muslims are terrorists or that all terrorists are Muslims. To discount the fact that we are currently persecuting a war against Islamic extremists would be foolish.
It would be the height of politically-correct-group-think to not watch this group and single out individuals for investigation specifically when there are multiple flags. By "watch this group" I specifically mean using it as a flag in their decision matrix when combing through their vast databases. We can argue as to which flags or combination of flags warrant further action but that does not negate the fact that it should be done.
If he supports his family financially, surely that makes him less likely to become a suicide bomber (or other terrorist)?
Ask American Muslims you know if they know anyone that the FBI has talked to in some capacity or if the FBI has shown up at the local mosque. You'd be surprised.
- young Muslim male
- travels extensively to / lived in a Muslim country
- linked to another "person of interes"
- has immediate family that currently lives in a Muslim country
- sends money to family members in a Muslim country
- he returned alone to the US while the rest of his family stayed in Egypt.
Now, although traking does seem like an over reaction in this case you gotta ask yourself what job it is the FBI is tasked with. I have yet to see a comment mentioning the end of the article where the FBI agent says to the kid "don't worry you're boring", meaning they figured out he is not a threat. Also, we do not know why the FBI specifically wanted to track this kid. Perhaps the kid knows people even more interesting and they want to use him to get to them. Who knows.
I also do not agree with warrantless tracking and if they did need to get a warrant perhaps they would have thought more and decided not to track this kid. That said, the FBI watches potential threats all the time and this kid has all the flags, for better or worse.