10 of 14

Write now Article Tools

The Security Debate: Should American Endorse Profiling?

In a secure world, no one would need to fear being placed in internment camps. No one would have his or her luggage searched every time he or she tried to board a plane. The inhabitants of a secure world would never have to see something like a specific hate crime rate rising seventeen hundred percent in one year, or the near-extermination of a religious minority. We may be living in the twenty-first century, but that isn't the catchall excuse that some have tried to make it. It doesn't mean that our fundamental morals have advanced any farther than they had the century before, or the century before, or the one before that. As long as we live and participate in a culture that does not actively discourage racial, ethnic, and religious profiling, our world will never be secure.

There are two applicable definitions for security'. One states that, "Security means being free from danger," ("Security" 1). The other lists the definition of security as, "freedom from anxiety or fear" (Miller 1). Either way, these and other kinds of profiling do not contribute positively to a sense of security. When we speak of being secure, we must speak of it in terms of security for all people, not just the majority. The sacrifice of the security of the minority is a sacrifice of the security of all. Once a precedent is set for the ability to legally single someone out due to a factor beyond their reasonable control, our society has been compromised. The notion that we have created a faade of security for some, in exchange for forcing other innocent citizens to live on the fringe in anxiety, is more than a half-founded idea: it is a reality. With forty-six of the fifty United States lacking a law to prevent these kinds of profiling, and with the Chairman of the House's Homeland Security department publicly endorsing such discrimination, those who still claim that profiling is making the nation safe' or secure' are fooling themselves.
Racial, ethnic, and religious profiling have failed the system over and over again, creating huge security dangers. In 1901, secret service agents allowed a Caucasian man to pass without being searched because they were focusing on a "dark complexioned man with a mustache" only to have the unchecked man assassinate President McKinley (Racial Profiling 3). In the Oklahoma City bombings of 1995, security officials initially theorized that Arab terrorists' had been responsible, allowing the real offender

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Judging others only divides society?
We want to hear your view. Write now!