Profiling is Just Wrong

Response to Daily Herald's "Like it or Not, Kirk Comments are True" In his effort to justify ethnic and racial profiling, Steve Haisley claims that it is the same as a crime victim giving the police a description of an 18 year-old African-American and then expecting “the authorities to focus their investigation on 60-year-old white men” (“Like it or not, Kirk comments are true,” Nov. 20).

Yes, it would be ridiculous if after this crime the authorities did this. But what Haisley forgets is that when the 9/11 attacks are considered, he is not dealing with a crime whose perpetrators are still unknown. Those criminals were identified and are known to have lost their lives in the attack. This is unlike the situation Haisley sets up, where a crime has been committed and the police are in search of the perpetrators to bring them to justice.

Those who call for nondiscrimination are not insulting the intelligence of the America people; neither are they going overboard with political correctness. Instead they are pointing out that our efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks against our nation cannot compromise our American values of nondiscrimination based on race, ethnicity or religious background.

Rep. Mark Kirk, Haisley and others are as right to call for profiling of young Arabs males during the visa process as they are right to call for profiling of white, 24-35 year-old Catholic men around federal government buildings, abortion clinics and Olympic Games.