Discrimination or sensible profiling?

[sp1814]

There are many people calling for Muslims and blacks to be targetted for searches because of their ethnicity (recently highlighted in an article on the Daily Mail - "My White Middle-Aged Wife Doesn't Look Like A Terrorist').

Whatever the rights or wrongs with that - should BA treat all men like potential paedophiles?

http://www.dailymail....en-like-perverts.html

Are the comments from the Mail readership on the link fair, or are they being a bit hypocritical?

[Sqad]

sp1814.........on the surface, this does seem a bit "over the top" by B.A.

[rojash]

Wasn't there a recent case on the UK of two women paedophiles? In which case, should BA just ban all adults from sitting next to kids?

[Sqad]

Or better still....Ban kids on all flights........LOL

[sp1814]

Yes, it's true that there has been two stories about female paedophiles, but I think we should keep things in perspective. The country was shocked by these stories BECAUSE the perpetrators were women. It's incredibly rare for women to be convicted of sexually abusing kids.

[keyplus90]

Why not just stop giving birth to the kids.

[ummmm]

That would solve the problem keyplus...

[standian]

That would solve more problems than just this!

[Sqad]

sp ///// It's incredibly rare for women to be convicted of sexually abusing kids.//////

Not the same thing as "it's incredibly rare for women to sexually abuse kids.

[anotheoldgit]

I think there is a vast difference between the unlikely threat of children likely to be abused aboard a flight, that the likelihood of a plane load of passengers and flight crew at risk from being blown out of the sky by potential terrorists.

[society]

"it's incredibly rare for women to sexually abuse kids"

I don't think it's rare, I believe it's just that it's not reported.

[jno]

No doubt if anything did happen to a child, BA would be sued; so they're protecting their own backs, understandably. Eddie's solution may be the best: seat all children with their families; seat unaccompanied children together and appoint a steward/ess to look after them.

[anotheoldgit]

/// What conncection is there in the first place between the story in the link and would-be terrorists? Absolutely zilch.///

sp's headline was, 'Discrimination or sensible profiling?'

So the connection was about profiling, 'Muslims and Blacks to be targeted for searches' / 'Men to be targeted as potential paedophiles'.

[rov1200]

I suppose some terrorists could be homosexual.

But all the recent terrorists are Muslim fanatics with a beard. Homosexuals could look like your next door neighbour with no outward appearance to his sexuality. Also the casual molesting of a child in a public place bears no relationship to putting a bomb in an aircraft.

Putting all males through a scanner will probably be futile. You could imagine after the 15th billion passenger is screened apathy will set in. With profile scanning this could be narrowed down to about a 1 in a million and decided by a computer not a fallible security guard.

[anotheoldgit]

/// Who in the UK is "profiling" men sitting next to children in aeroplanes?///

British Airways,

/// where is the connection between men sitting with kids on planes and terrorist organisations? ///

As I have already said the connection is in the word 'profiling'

[Mustardmit]

*Sigh* and so the 'paedohysteria' continues. Yet another donation to the government-funded fear campain designed to keep the 'sheeple' nice and pliable.
It almost goes without saying that this is grossly wrong IMO.

[sp1814]

ahmskunnirt

Profiling in order to identify potential terrorists has been a huge story recently.

The other article I referred to is here:

http://www.dailymail....like-shoe-bomber.html

Looking at the responses, it would appear that the majority think that airport authorities SHOULD use profiling (young Middle Eastern looking people should be targeted for extra searches), but profiling SHOULDN'T be used if the demographic concerned (men in general) look like them.

You could argue that this is an example of hypocracy.