Court Says US Border Inspections Of Muslims Were Allowed

Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK: U.S. immigration authorities acted constitutionally when they subjected dozens of people returning from an Islamic convention in Canada to screening tactics usually reserved for people suspected of being terrorists, an appeals court said Monday.

The court upheld the conclusion of a federal judge that the 2004 inspections, which involved frisking and fingerprinting, did not violate U.S. constitutional rights to practice religion and avoid unlawful searches.

"We do not believe the extra hassle of being fingerprinted and photographed — for the sole purpose of having their identities verified — is a significant additional burden that turns an otherwise constitutional policy into one that is unconstitutional," a three-judge panel wrote.

The New York Civil Liberties Union had sued on behalf of five New York residents who attended the "Reviving the Islamic Spirit" conference in Toronto. The NYCLU sought a court order to prevent similar inspections, along with destruction of personal information collected during the stops.

The residents were searched after telling border officers they had attended the Islamic conference. They were frisked, fingerprinted and photographed, and their cars were searched. They were required to fill out several forms and were questioned about their past travels, what occurred at the conference and why they attended it.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/26/america/NA-GEN-US-Muslims-Stopped.php

Look, back off this one. When you get the first little old blue haired lady from lower Manhattan blowing herself up for some reason other than she missed a sale at Bloomingdales, then people can start bitching...but until such time as terrorists cease to be 99% aged 15-50 and middle-eastern males, then go on to more productive and defendable issues.

Would have worked out quite well for Timothy McVeigh, yes?

However, if you care to delve into such things you will find that every single organization that called itself patriot, or what ever or lived within a two mile radius of someone who did was infiltrated by FBI, ATF, and stool pidgeons. Funny thing that, even McVeighs little group was infiltrated, but the Federal Bird Inspectors did their normal stellar job and missed everything. One group they infiltrated actually by the feds own count had more federal agents as members than actual members.

Back to the issue. The muslim terrorist groups are almost it seems impossible to infiltrate, and it seems that no 'peaceful' muslims are stepping forward to do so either. The alternative is to put pressure on the 'profile' i.e. muslim, mid-eastern male age 15-50. They will still get through, but not as easily.

males in the US are terrorists and stay away from them? BTW, Israeli Jews also fall into the category of "aged 15-50 middle eastern males."

unless it's absolutely necessary.

I used to place patriotic-cultural decals on my car...until some idiot singled my car out and broke my side-view mirror on purpose.

Better to be safer than sorry...keep your politics and religion a secret...unless a venue or particular place of discussion offers relatively-risk free openings for offering an opinion.

as for the burdens they had to go through, I have mixed feelings. On the theoretical side of things, it bothers me that a certain group of people are singled out for treatment that no other Americans have to endure. Smacks of violating Equal Protection of the laws. On the practical side of things, part of conducting effective anti-terrorist surveillance is targeting groups that are central to the membership of known terorist organizations. I know a lot of people will say, "let's start examining whites too...wasn't Timothy McVeigh white?" and I see the theoretically correct point. It is well taken. But, it seems to me that if the United States wants to have a more secure system of anti-terrorist surveillance, it HAS to investigate of Middle Eastern descent and who are related to Islam. If they're not looking in Islamic places...how are we going to catch prospective attacks and their pre-planning?

Yes, I'm sure some terrorist who does not fit the racial profile could get by the government's net and cause damage. That's the nature of terrorism and anti-terrorist surveillance. Nothing 100%. But what is a responsible government to do? How can it best achieve anti-terrorist surveillance? Waiting until an individual or an organization does something perceptibly "terroristic" is not an option, because it is too late by then. What can be done, in my view, is to do the necessary surveillance of Middle EAsterns and Muslims, but do it in a way that explains to them why the government is taking these steps, and taking the care to respect their dignity through the process.

As I said, it's a very conflicting feeling for me. It doesn't EMOTIONALLY feel right...but rationally speaking, a government has to have some type of leeway to do effective police-work. How that is done respectfully is where the issue should be discussed.

i wonder how this story would be playing out if those folks had told the border officials they'd been attending a 'jewish spirit' conference.

After all, one of the great aiders and abettors right now for unconstitutional and downright terrifying government actions (if not terrorist actions, but that may be just a question of semantics) are judges who seem to think that the Bill of Rights is optional. I wonder how these esteemed jurists would react to being detained and shaken down on their return to the country, and having their personal information taken down for unspecified or vague reasons of "national security"?