It’s been a highly talked about story: The nine Muslims who were kicked off an AirTran flight on New Year’s Day because of a supposedly suspicious conversation about the safest place to sit on the plane.
As The Washington Post reported, the nine passengers were headed to Florida when they were ordered off the flight after three of them talked about the safest place to sit on the airplane. The passengers felt they were being racially profiled because of their appearance. Three of the passengers were Pakistani, two were Turkish and one was African American. The women wore head scarves.
FBI agents later cleared the passengers of any suspicion and called the incident a misunderstanding. AirTran apologized.
But for many, the apology was completely unnecessary. Take a look at the most popular reader comment written by “exporter73” in response to the Associated Press story about the apology:
“Why not profile? Let’s see … muslims, or so-called muslims, were responsible for 911 … and many arab countries have publicly made known their hatred for the USA … so why not profile.”
Ignorant comment? Or fair question? I’d argue it’s at least an understandable reaction.
Why shouldn’t we expect the American public to support racial profiling of Muslims or Arab-Americans when its government supports it?
The passengers on the plane and the pilot clearly believed it was OK to be alarmed by passengers who appear to be Muslim making “suspicious” remarks about the plane. But no story I read about the incident ever asked the question: Does racial profiling of Muslims actually work?
It’s an important point of context that would have anticipated reactions such as those from exporter73.
And it’s context that is at the heart of a newly released report from the Constitution Project titled “The Use and Abuse of Immigration Authority as a Counterterrorism Tool” [PDF]. The report by the well-respected bipartisan nonprofit focuses on a range of post-Sept. 11 government initiatives that targeted Arabs and Muslims.
The report says:
I’m no expert, but it looks like racial profiling in this example failed.
The report also focuses on a controversial, post-Sept. 11 U.S. Department of Justice interview program conducted in the nation’s Middle Eastern communities:
The Justice Department described these interviews as “voluntary.” Yet by all reports, the interviewees did not perceive them as such. Indeed, according to a Government Accountability Office report on the program, interviewees “feared there could be repercussions to them for declining to participate.” Additionally, many of those who did participate subsequently found themselves in removal proceedings. Participants experienced these interviews as ethnically and religiously motivated. According to the GAO report on the program, interviewees frequently felt “singled out and investigated because of their ethnicity or religious beliefs.” Not one of those interviewed has been convicted of a terrorist offense.
So 5,000 foreign nationals were detained in preventative detention and 3,200 were interviewed in the Justice Department program, but not a single one was convicted of a terrorist crime. Zero out 8,200 is not a good batting average. Couldn’t a fair observer question, then, whether racial profiling works or not?
The larger picture of racial profiling post-Sept. 11 will likely return to the forefront as President-elect Barack Obama begins re-examining the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies and practices. Any attempts to undo measures such as the Patriot Act will draw fierce opposition. As journalists cover this developing story, we must provide meaningful context that helps readers understand the substance of our stories.
And context is not just numbers, as cited in the Constitution Project’s report, but real people. If I were the national security reporter on this story, I’d track down one of those people held in preventative detention or questioned in the Justice Department program. I bet they would have compelling stories and thoughtful answers to the question of “why not profile?”
