4 ms·

It's unfortunate, but has to happen. The statistical likelihood of him being suspect were greater than others at that instance. The cops did what is expected of

by djanogo 14y ago

It's unfortunate, but has to happen. The statistical likelihood of him being suspect were greater than others at that instance. The cops did what is expected of them, just like a software developer would perform a check for most likely condition first before the flow moves forwards. I don't see anything wrong, my skin color is similar to him and I wouldn't mind them checking me out first, I would gladly cooperate so that they can move on and find the real bad guy.

vowelless 14y ago
These are my feelings as well. And it does feel the Saudi national was completely co-operating with the cops. It's the right thing to do.
w1ntermute 14y ago
Repeat after me: skin color is not probable cause. Setting aside all ethical issues, using ethnicity alone to determine probable cause is a violation of the law. If you would like to see it be acceptable to use skin color as the sole determinant for probable cause, that's fine. Just change the law. But until then, it is not allowed.
- djanogo 14y ago
  no need to repeat 'politically correct' statements, skin color, just like sex and age, are part of vectors that you would have to mathematically use to narrow down suspects.
  - vowelless 14y ago
    Plus there is a high probability that he had a thick saudi accent (based on the accent of his roommate). A saudi descent american with a bostonian accent probably would not have been an immediate suspect.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > no need to repeat 'politically correct' statements It's not a "'politically correct' statement", it's part of the law. If you think that it's OK to search someone's apartment based on their ethnicity alone, I can only assume that you have no respect for the rule of law. And from TFA, I could not see any other distinguishing factors that were used to determine probable cause to search this guy's apartment, instead of any of the other people at the scene. The only factor was his ethnicity.
    - morganw 14y ago
      > probable cause to search Don't need probable cause if the roommate consented to a search. "you have nothing to hide, do you?" 2nd oldest trick in the book.
      - w1ntermute 14y ago
        Did you not read the article? They showed up with "a phalanx of officers from the FBI, ATF and Boston". They wouldn't have done that if they were just hoping the roommate would let them in. They likely had a search warrant. And like I said, this is speaking purely legally. Even if they didn't have a search warrant, the fact that they targeted this guy for his ethnicity alone was unethical.
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        One might question the extent to which someone on a student visa can "consent" to a search, when faced by numerous government agents at his door. I am sure that legally there are no problems there, but ethically? There is unstated element of coercion there.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    You are not thinking sufficiently Bayesian. While you could say that there is an elevated chance that the terrorist is of Arabic descent (and frankly, the odds there are not that strong. Maybe better than 50%, but I wouldn't put my money even on that...) that is only a small part of the picture. You must also consider the possibility that any given person of Arabic descent is a terrorist (an absurdly small probability). When you combine these two factors then you can decide how probable it is that he is the terrorist, given his descent. If you actually work out the numbers here, you will undoubtedly discover that the probability he is responsible falls well below any rational standard for harassing the man. Edit: To get a grip on what sort of standard you would usually demand: consider a murder in a small isolated town. With no clues at all, lets say the murderer could be anyone. In a town with 3 people, each person could be said to have a 50/50 chance of being the murderer. Is that enough for search warrants for both (not under our legal system, but just ethically/morally)? Sure, I'd accept that. If there were a hundred people in that town? No way. So, does "terrorist, given arabic descent" go over 1%? I HIGHLY doubt it.
    - vadman 14y ago
      I don't know much about Bayesian statistics, but wouldn't it be "terrorist, given Arabic descent AND participation in the targeted event AND proximity to the explosion AND high probability of a follow up explosion (judging from past events) AND ..."?
      - jlgreco 14y ago
        > wouldn't it be "terrorist, given Arabic descent AND participation in the targeted event AND proximity to the explosion AND high probability of a follow up explosion (judging from past events) AND ..." The only thing that man has over the likely thousands of others that in some way participated in the event is his skin color. Everyone else there had those same properties. So if we are considering the population of people in the general area at the time, then no. They used only his descent. They, and djanogo[edited], used P(arabic|terrorist) to justify a search. In order to justify a search you need a reasonable P(terrorist|arabic). Assign some reasonable numbers to each factor off the top of your head, work it out on a napkin, and come back to me with whatever figures work out to be over whatever a reasonable threshold might be.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
pyre 14y ago
I think that the point was less about the cops questioning him and more about the mainstream media jumping to unwarranted conclusions and the 'talking heads' on 24/7 news stations making even more wild speculation about him based little to no information (i.e. "He has to be the bomber, why else would they be questioning him").
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  That problem is with the media and it exists regardless of skin color. Today's "always on" Media likes to report first, fact check later. Can't let anyone scoop you. And if you make a mistake... retract, apologize and move on.
JanezStupar 14y ago
Yes because everyone knows that towelheads mean trouble, innit?
DangerousPie 14y ago
What data are you basing this on exactly? Is there peer-reviewed work somewhere that shows that people with darker skin colors are significantly more likely to commit such bombings in the US? Because if there isn't than this is plain old racism.
not_that_noob 14y ago
So you're saying you're ok with a SWAT team battering down your door just because you're brown-skinned? Or perhaps a friendly waterboarding session? After all, that's just co-operation so that they can move on and find the bad guy. As Ben Franklin said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
arkitaip 14y ago
The fact that you would subject yourself to wanton treatment isn't a good argument just because you belong to a minority, quite the opposite.
nashequilibrium 14y ago
When it actually happens to you, then i would like you to think about how you feel and whether you still think this is a just approach. It's very easy to rationalize racial profiling by using statistics but it doesn't make it right as we are not just a nation made up of statistics, when you profile people it changes their behavior in public, it makes them guarded, it makes other people feel it is ok to discriminate against them. This creates many side effects in everyday society life that is not easily traceable back to discrimination.
avenger123 14y ago
I don't think you understand what "checking me out first" implies. This person is now labelled across the United States as a potential terrorist. Even if he is exonerated, the damage would have been done. It will likely have a great impact on his future. We also don't know at this point how he has been treated. You state that the "likelihood of him being suspect were greater than others". Who decides this? If there were 1000 runners with a heavy middle eastern accent, would they all have been arrested? Do you put all middle eastern people in camps (as was done to the Japanese in US and Canada during WW2)? I don't have answer to these questions, I do object to your notion that there is nothing wrong with this.

by djanogo 14y ago

vowelless 14y ago

These are my feelings as well. And it does feel the Saudi national was completely co-operating with the cops. It's the right thing to do.

w1ntermute 14y ago

Repeat after me: skin color is not probable cause. Setting aside all ethical issues, using ethnicity alone to determine probable cause is a violation of the law. If you would like to see it be acceptable to use skin color as the sole determinant for probable cause, that's fine. Just change the law. But until then, it is not allowed.

djanogo 14y ago
no need to repeat 'politically correct' statements, skin color, just like sex and age, are part of vectors that you would have to mathematically use to narrow down suspects.
- vowelless 14y ago
  Plus there is a high probability that he had a thick saudi accent (based on the accent of his roommate). A saudi descent american with a bostonian accent probably would not have been an immediate suspect.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > no need to repeat 'politically correct' statements It's not a "'politically correct' statement", it's part of the law. If you think that it's OK to search someone's apartment based on their ethnicity alone, I can only assume that you have no respect for the rule of law. And from TFA, I could not see any other distinguishing factors that were used to determine probable cause to search this guy's apartment, instead of any of the other people at the scene. The only factor was his ethnicity.
  - morganw 14y ago
    > probable cause to search Don't need probable cause if the roommate consented to a search. "you have nothing to hide, do you?" 2nd oldest trick in the book.
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      Did you not read the article? They showed up with "a phalanx of officers from the FBI, ATF and Boston". They wouldn't have done that if they were just hoping the roommate would let them in. They likely had a search warrant. And like I said, this is speaking purely legally. Even if they didn't have a search warrant, the fact that they targeted this guy for his ethnicity alone was unethical.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      One might question the extent to which someone on a student visa can "consent" to a search, when faced by numerous government agents at his door. I am sure that legally there are no problems there, but ethically? There is unstated element of coercion there.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  You are not thinking sufficiently Bayesian. While you could say that there is an elevated chance that the terrorist is of Arabic descent (and frankly, the odds there are not that strong. Maybe better than 50%, but I wouldn't put my money even on that...) that is only a small part of the picture. You must also consider the possibility that any given person of Arabic descent is a terrorist (an absurdly small probability). When you combine these two factors then you can decide how probable it is that he is the terrorist, given his descent. If you actually work out the numbers here, you will undoubtedly discover that the probability he is responsible falls well below any rational standard for harassing the man. Edit: To get a grip on what sort of standard you would usually demand: consider a murder in a small isolated town. With no clues at all, lets say the murderer could be anyone. In a town with 3 people, each person could be said to have a 50/50 chance of being the murderer. Is that enough for search warrants for both (not under our legal system, but just ethically/morally)? Sure, I'd accept that. If there were a hundred people in that town? No way. So, does "terrorist, given arabic descent" go over 1%? I HIGHLY doubt it.
  - vadman 14y ago
    I don't know much about Bayesian statistics, but wouldn't it be "terrorist, given Arabic descent AND participation in the targeted event AND proximity to the explosion AND high probability of a follow up explosion (judging from past events) AND ..."?
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      > wouldn't it be "terrorist, given Arabic descent AND participation in the targeted event AND proximity to the explosion AND high probability of a follow up explosion (judging from past events) AND ..." The only thing that man has over the likely thousands of others that in some way participated in the event is his skin color. Everyone else there had those same properties. So if we are considering the population of people in the general area at the time, then no. They used only his descent. They, and djanogo[edited], used P(arabic|terrorist) to justify a search. In order to justify a search you need a reasonable P(terrorist|arabic). Assign some reasonable numbers to each factor off the top of your head, work it out on a napkin, and come back to me with whatever figures work out to be over whatever a reasonable threshold might be.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

pyre 14y ago

I think that the point was less about the cops questioning him and more about the mainstream media jumping to unwarranted conclusions and the 'talking heads' on 24/7 news stations making even more wild speculation about him based little to no information (i.e. "He has to be the bomber, why else would they be questioning him").

jack-r-abbit 14y ago
That problem is with the media and it exists regardless of skin color. Today's "always on" Media likes to report first, fact check later. Can't let anyone scoop you. And if you make a mistake... retract, apologize and move on.

JanezStupar 14y ago

Yes because everyone knows that towelheads mean trouble, innit?

DangerousPie 14y ago

What data are you basing this on exactly? Is there peer-reviewed work somewhere that shows that people with darker skin colors are significantly more likely to commit such bombings in the US? Because if there isn't than this is plain old racism.

not_that_noob 14y ago

So you're saying you're ok with a SWAT team battering down your door just because you're brown-skinned? Or perhaps a friendly waterboarding session? After all, that's just co-operation so that they can move on and find the bad guy. As Ben Franklin said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

arkitaip 14y ago

The fact that you would subject yourself to wanton treatment isn't a good argument just because you belong to a minority, quite the opposite.

nashequilibrium 14y ago

When it actually happens to you, then i would like you to think about how you feel and whether you still think this is a just approach. It's very easy to rationalize racial profiling by using statistics but it doesn't make it right as we are not just a nation made up of statistics, when you profile people it changes their behavior in public, it makes them guarded, it makes other people feel it is ok to discriminate against them. This creates many side effects in everyday society life that is not easily traceable back to discrimination.

avenger123 14y ago

I don't think you understand what "checking me out first" implies. This person is now labelled across the United States as a potential terrorist. Even if he is exonerated, the damage would have been done. It will likely have a great impact on his future. We also don't know at this point how he has been treated. You state that the "likelihood of him being suspect were greater than others". Who decides this? If there were 1000 runners with a heavy middle eastern accent, would they all have been arrested? Do you put all middle eastern people in camps (as was done to the Japanese in US and Canada during WW2)? I don't have answer to these questions, I do object to your notion that there is nothing wrong with this.