President Bush, in a move that has already sparked a great deal of debate, yesterday issued the following guidelines regarding racial profiling:
President Bush issued the first broad ban on racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies yesterday, but included exceptions permitting use of race and ethnicity to combat potential terrorist attacks.
The new policy covers about 120,000 officers at 70 federal agencies with law enforcement powers. It prohibits the use of “generalized stereotypes” based on race or ethnicity, and allows officers to consider them only as part of a specific description or tip from an informant.
“Routine patrol duties must be carried out without consideration of race,” the Justice Department policy states. “Stereotyping certain races as having a greater propensity to commit crimes is absolutely prohibited.”
There are limited exceptions:
A summary said the policy will not take away any “tools needed to identify terrorist threats and stop potential catastrophic attacks.”
The document cites the hypothetical case of a report by intelligence sources “that Middle Eastern terrorists are planning to use commercial jetliners as weapons by hijacking them at an airport in California during the next week.”
“Before allowing men appearing to be of Middle Eastern origin to board commercial airplanes in California airports during the next week, Transportation Security Administration personnel, and other federal and state authorities, may subject them to heightened scrutiny,” the document states.
Sounds reasonable. What is the reaction of the left? Take a guess- uniformly negative:
Sooth Sayer
It’s a lucky day for Rev Sharpton – I feel good and will refrain from what I’d like to say … for now.
Z dIZZ
Racism is sheer ignorance and should not be effecting our society today. Grow up people and get a grip.