NEEDLES IN A HAYSTACK: Terrorists are so rare, a new study concludes, that a heavy reliance on profiling is no more effective than random sampling of the population in locating them.
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Profiling is a hot-button issue—civil liberties groups maintain that making assumptions based on race, nationality or ethnicity is unacceptably discriminatory, whereas some prominent conservatives argue that the method is an effective means to combat crime and terrorism, and therefore worth the social cost.
So who's right?
According to new research, it is no more effective to profile strongly—that is, subject individuals to increased scrutiny in proportion to their presumed likelihood of malfeasance—than it is to randomly flag individuals in the general population when it comes to rooting out terrorism. The reason, says study author William Press, a computer scientist and computational biologist at the University of Texas at Austin: terrorists are vastly outnumbered by innocents, and it's a waste of time and money to screen and rescreen the same benign people.
"The existing literature tends to assume away the problem that drives the result here," which is the inefficiency of oversampling, says John Knowles, an economics professor at the University of Southampton in England who has published many papers on racial profiling. "This is obviously an important problem in real life, and hopefully Press's result will draw academic attention to it."
The extent of profiling in the U.S. is difficult to quantify. According to Amnesty International USA, 24 states have laws on the books prohibiting racial profiling in one form or another, but only four states outlaw profiling based on religion. Guidelines for federal law-enforcement agents prohibit racial profiling generally but reserve some leeway in combating terrorism, illegal border crossings and threats to national security. And although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which conducts security screenings at airports, says it does not profile by either ethnicity or religion, it has been sued recently for allegedly doing just that.
If profiling were to be used for security purposes, Press says, it would actually be more effective in a weakened form. Mathematically speaking, it would be optimal to screen individuals in proportion to the square root of their presumed probability of malfeasance. In other words, someone deemed nine times as likely as the average traveler to be a terrorist would be subjected to three times as many screenings. (Such an approach, legal and ethical questions aside, would require accurate quantitative assessments of those probabilities—a tall order in its own right.) This so-called square-root-biased sampling would distribute resources more evenly across the general populace and thereby turn up more wrongdoers by casting a broader net, according to Press's model.
In pure political terms, might the study, published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, be construed as a scientific argument for racial, ethnic and religious profiling, albeit in a diminished form? Press doesn't think so; square-root-biased sampling, if it were somehow implemented, would limit profiling so much as to "reopen the moral and ethical questions of whether the profiling is worth the social cost at all," he says. "Personally, I would say that it is not." The mathematics of the inefficacy of strong profiling, Press adds, "could actually lead one to a decision not to profile at all."
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5 Comments
Add CommentProfiling subjects people to humiliation at the hands of low intelligence security offices (what can you expect for the salary they pay these people). It way in fact create sympathy for terrorists in those subject to this form of discrimination. A terrorist could explain his/her behaviour to be a result of having been subject to similar discrimination.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat the TSA does excel in is to prove that if one is a high school dropout who probably spent most of their adolescent stoned or drunk, they can indeed get a job with a polyester uniform and intimidate people who scrimped, saved and worked for their Ph.D. as they try to go to conferences to make the world a better place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have seldom felt so embarrassed as a native born American as I was when was witnessed a middle class Muslim family with small children crying and screaming being grilled at La Guardia with the concerned father being held back by the TSA individual as his 4 or 5 year old daughter--barefoot, in a panic and dressed only in a thin T-shirt and jeans--was repeatedly scanned by an obviously malfunctioning security wand. The mother was busy with their other crying child. At least the TSA did not jump to give the tot a vaginal exam while I was in line.
And I think this must rival the Pakistani scientist from Cambridge who I talked with while literally redressing himself in Denver in June after the hydrogen energy conference. "At least," he said, "they didn't keep me an hour and make me miss my connecting flight as they did when I was coming via Houston. I won't attend any more conferences in the US.""
The "security theater" (not my term) at US airports is a disgrace to common sense and yet another example of the last administration's bar room patriotism. As long as each and every piece of air freight isn't checked, and draconian policies concerning who has access to the each and every step of every cranny of the airport--maintenance especially--the planes will not be safe. And of course, the TSA keeps on loosing their uniforms so that in itself is indicative of their administrative abilities.
Certainly, I, like most people, are in sympathy for the aims of safe travel. But what is being done--and I've many more stories--isn't security, it is too often stupidity. No, I am not brown nor do I have a funny name, but I've had my own bags checked many times as that explosive .5 oz of mouthwash is taken out and discarded (I've offered to pour out or drink the offensive amount.) Obviously, the TSA cares nothing for the chemistry of explosives nor the practically of mixing a toxic brew either in one's seat, or in the bathroom of a flying plane. Obviously, "facts" are often the enemy of ideology and belief. And of course, a job when you get paid to yell at people rudely.
You two are ones to speak about low intelligence? You deride the TSA officials in airports and profile them as societal miscreants when they are working within the framework required of them by law. You blame the Bush administration when many of these laws were passed by the predominately democrat congress. You also fail to recognize that effective profiling does not include families, or middle aged men regaurdless of ethnicity. I've seen obviously caucasian families singled out for the same treatment you describe for this middle eastern family.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTerrorist are rarely motivated by something so trivial as "They were rude to me at the airport". Anyone who would be moved to terrorism for something so trival is insane and anything would tip them in that direction.
JH Sibal is correct in his closing statement that obviously "facts" are the enemy of ideology and belief as proven by his preceeding triad
Effective profiling targets specific groups that have a propensity for terrorism. That would be middle eastern males 18-30. That does not by any means imply that all middle eastern males 18-30 are terrorist or even that a majority of them are terrorist. What it does signify and recognize that an overwhelming majority of terrorist are from this group. The TSA cares a great deal for the chemistry of explosives and the practicality of mixing a toxic brew once on the plane which anyone with a background in chemistry will tell you is extremely easy to do. Check the facts
I am speaking from my experiences travelling worldwide. What the US does is repeated by other countries, robot like. I last travelled to the US in 2000, was not impressed by your security personnel. I don't believe I look middle eastern whatever that might mean. I come to this conclusion because I am not from that part of the world. Religion is the principle cause of almost all the problems in the world including terrorism. If you are part of a religious group you will know why a Muslim person will be sympathetic towards another who is being harassed by a security person simply because he/she fits a profile. If you must use profiles how about a minimum IQ of 100 to qualify for the security officers job. Please don't use the word Caucasian, it implies people coming from the Caucuses, not people of Anglo-Saxon origins which is what you are implying. True terrorists are not motived by rude behaviour, they are probably trained to cope with it better than you or I. Terrorists are motivated by the delusion of a God.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm curious where profiling occurs. And what "social cost" are we talking about? I haven't seen anything remotely approaching profiling yet at U.S. airports. I wish it would happen so I could speed through the security line quicker.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, what is "religious profiling?" How do you tell someone's religion from their appearance, assuming they aren't obviously dressed in religious clothing? Or is that just to frighten us with the possibility that "it could happen" and that it would be an infringement of civil rights?
I'd like to know more about William Press's methodology. His conclusion is intriguing because it's rather counter-intuitive.