Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource TomPaine.com Stories Description An account of the resource TomPaine.com -- a liberal advocacy organization -- distributed a public call on August 12, 2002 for 300 word "opinion advertisement" similar to those that the organization had been running regularly in the op-ed page of The New York Times. TomPaine.com received hundreds of submissions from the public, most of which the September 11 Digital Archive has preserved here. TomPaine Story TomPaine Story: Story Unlike so many other domestic political issues, racial profiling did not disappear with the collapse of the twin towers. Instead, it gained immediate importance, even as it was dramatically recast. Before September 11, 2001, eighty-one percent of Americans wanted racial profiling stopped. After September 11, over fifty percent of Americans said they supported profiling -- as long as it was profiling of Middle Easterners at airports. Using racial or ethnic appearance to describe known suspects works when a specific crime has occurred and the police have a physical description of the perpetrator. In the case of these acts of terrorism, however, all known suspects died in the hijackings. The government is now using racial profiling in an on-going ""war against terrorism."" But as we have learned from the ""war on drugs,"" using racial profiles to predict future behavior is folly. Real police work is about observing suspicious behavior, not appearance. When we use physical appearance as a proxy for criminality, law enforcement shifts its attention away from what counts - how people behave. This approach sweeps huge numbers of innocent people into the investigative net, squandering our finite law enforcement resources and diminishing the chances of recognizing aberrant behavior when it happens. It also guarantees that we will miss many terrorists who do not fit our image of what terrorists ""should look like"": the alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid, ""dirty bomber"" Jose Padilla, and homegrown terrorists like Tim McVeigh. Racial profiling has the added consequence of alienating the very people most able to help spot al-Qaeda ""sleepers"" on our soil: thousands of innocent Middle Easterners, who, instead of being viewed as potential partners in intelligence gathering, have been detained and treated as criminals. Finally, statistics on hit rates - the rate at which police find actual evidence of crime - for officers using racial profiling to identify criminals, show clearly that this tactic is less effective than policing that uses behavior rather than skin color as the basis for suspicion. Attorney General Ashcroft and his colleagues in law enforcement should take the lessons of the highway to the airport: Even and especially in a time of great fear, singling out groups of people for suspicion based on their physical appearance is neither constitutional, morally acceptable, nor effective. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource tp150.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2003-03-03