Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for "breaking into" his own home.
posted by ocherdraco on Jul 20, 2009 - 985 comments

Billboards that display a personal message for you...that was sort of cute, and voluntary. Billboards with speakers that focused sound on a spot...voices in your head are not so cute, and not voluntary. Billboards that photograph you, and him, and her, process the imagery, perform a statistical analysis, and return a targeted ad based on your demographic profile...maybe plan a different route home....
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on May 31, 2008 - 21 comments

Malcolm Gladwell takes a look at the effectiveness of criminal profiling.
posted by graventy on Nov 8, 2007 - 13 comments

"We would pull over cars that had college bumper stickers, because we knew college kids often partied with marijuana...we would pull over 'Vietnam Vet' plates, because a lot of our vets developed a habit over there...I would look for Mexicans. I would look for black people. It works." A former Texas narcotics officer is selling a DVD that can teach you how to avoid arrest. (Unless you're black, Mexican, a veteran, or a college kid, presumably.) Youtube. More youtuberance.
posted by dersins on Oct 31, 2007 - 46 comments

Traditionally, media doesn't print names/photos of people only accused, but not yet convicted, but not always. Lots of towns have a police blotter section where arrests are listed. Here in Seattle, the FBI recently asked the public for help in identifying two men seen acting suspicious on the ferry system. The Seattle PI has decided not to publish the photos. Other local media have. The commentary on if the PI made the right choice follows predictable paths...
posted by nomisxid on Aug 21, 2007 - 33 comments

Political Profiling run amok . Right on the tails of the resignation of Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales comes a press conference where he accepts, but does not take, responsibility. All this will come as no surprise to the people who read this report that states that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops.
posted by DreamerFi on Mar 14, 2007 - 29 comments

Air Marshals Say Passenger Overreacted. "The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned (Annie) Jacobsen’s actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves." (Second story down, via atrios)
posted by solistrato on Jul 23, 2004 - 37 comments

Police dog suspended for potential racism. It seems that for some time now, Dolpho, a police dog in Pennsylvania, has been singling out black children, which, in the eyes of officials is clearly a sign of racism, and they are calling for an end to his active duty -- not to mention an end to his life.
posted by poorhouse on Feb 4, 2004 - 34 comments

Interview with Profiler Roy Hazelwood. Enough to make you feel a little less safer, and to marvel at both the "the infinity of darkness," the depths of potential monstrosity, and the ability of some to understand broken minds and bent hearts. "'If I were to give you each a test, could you take it the way you think this offender would take it?' We said yes.... Both of us came out as paranoid schizophrenics. The psychiatrist was astounded. We sat there and tried to take the test as we thought the guy we had in mind would take the test. "
posted by namespan on Aug 2, 2003 - 18 comments

"If your name is David Nelson you can expect to be hassled, delayed, questioned and searched before being allowed to board aircraft anywhere in the United States for the foreseeable future."
posted by elwoodwiles on May 15, 2003 - 54 comments

My Tivo thinks I'm a gay pregnant man! This article documents the struggles that some people have gone to in order to gear Tivo's programming to their interests. As one man said of himself: " [I] often [order] cooking shows, which softens TiVo's view of [me]. "I don't want it thinking I'm an ax murderer,".
posted by Raichle on Nov 26, 2002 - 33 comments

"The first flight we took my wife and I, we were greeted by a ticket agent who cheerfully told us that we had been selected randomly for a special security check. Then it began to happen at every single stop, at every single airport. The random process took on a 100 per cent certitude." Canadian award winning writer Rohinton Mistry cancels his US book tour after being subjected to racial profiling.
posted by tranquileye on Nov 3, 2002 - 78 comments

Would you fly with them? Having the information, whatever you think it proves, would you get on the plane to find out what's behind it?
posted by semmi on Mar 27, 2002 - 19 comments

The Case for Profiling 'As it happens, the suicide bombers who attacked us on Sept. 11 were young, Islamic, Arab and male. That is not a stereotype. That is a fact. And there is no hiding from it, as there is no hiding from the next al-Qaeda suicide bomber. He has to be found and stopped." From what can be read here, here, and in another Time article here , it would appear that profiling is a touch harder to do than this lightweight rant suggests. Whether one agrees with profiling or not, there seems little point in Time Magazine cheerleading it with an article that can only add to the high level of ignorance already surrounding this subject.
posted by RobertLoch on Mar 15, 2002 - 23 comments

No Profiling, No Saftey? ...to placate special interest groups that fear profiling will result in widespread racial or religious discrimination, authorities are imposing screening quotas that are unlikely to thwart a future terrorist attack. They should be doing the very opposite by creating more sophisticated profiling systems that catch real criminals. Is it really "damned if they do, damned if they don't" or is there a better way?
posted by nobody_knose on Mar 11, 2002 - 36 comments

Police offers will soon have to disclose why they have stopped someone - I thought this sounded like a reasonably good idea... especially since on more than one occasion I've been pulled over just so they can "check my car over"... until I read this: "Forces will be told to set up panels of community representatives to scrutinise stop and search records and check that ethnic minorities are not being targeted disproportionately.". Can anyone else see where this is going? "Oh, I'm afraid we can't arrest Mr. X, because we've arrested too many [insert random racial group here] this month".
posted by robzster1977 on Mar 11, 2002 - 17 comments

What now? Fashion profiling? (NYT) For the third time in 48 hours, an alert Israeli foiled an attempted suicide bombing on Tuesday. Near the West Bank settlement of Mehola in the Jordan Valley, a bus driver, Shalom Drei, thought a man climbing onto the second step of the bus looked suspicious. "He wore an aviator's jacket, zipped all the way up," Mr. Drei told Israeli television. "It looked strange to me." Mr. Drei pushed the stranger back off the bus, then, as the bus pulled away, the man exploded.
posted by semmi on Feb 20, 2002 - 39 comments

Linguistic profiling. Take the test: can you tell a person's race or ethnicity by their voice? Also, a survey on the relationships one makes between voice and character; a survey on bidialectalism; an NPR feature in RealAudio format on the subject from September 7; and a Brazilian secondary school teacher's simple assessment of the disconnect between students who write well but speak poorly.
posted by Mo Nickels on Dec 9, 2001 - 32 comments

Profiling, racial or otherwise, doesn't necessarily work.
posted by donkeyschlong on Oct 23, 2001 - 16 comments

China bans Muslims from flights. Don't like America's solution for airline safety? Try this. I wonder if this policy is temporary, and timed for President Bush's imminent visit to the region, or is this China's long-term solution? How will America respond - condemnation or tacit acceptance? Does it actually make Bush's trip safer?
posted by conquistador on Oct 17, 2001 - 13 comments

Airport Detainees Cleared At least 10 travelers of Middle Eastern descent who were detained at two New York airports have been cleared of any connection with Tuesday's terrorist attacks, Sen. Joseph Biden said Friday.

"Anyone with dark skin or who spoke with an accent was taken aside and searched," passenger Mike Glass of Seattle told the Times. "And then they went to any male with too much facial hair."

Isn't this going too far? >more<
posted by metrocake on Sep 14, 2001 - 20 comments

Muslim congressional intern removed from White House During a meeting between Muslim community leaders and the White House office of faith-based initiatives, too. Random administrative error, or religious profiling?
posted by Gilbert on Jun 29, 2001 - 19 comments

jon kats on "geek profiling": "W.A.V.E joins new sofware "security" programs ... being tested in public schools in America to compile and computerize information on students believed to be dangerous or potentially violent. This new rat-on-kids industry is an offshoot of the Geek Profiling anti-Net hysteria that broke out all across the United States after the Columbine High School killings, whose first anniversary is fast approaching. Despite the fact that horrific incidents like Columbine are extremely rare, and that the FBI and Justice Department have both reported that youth violence has dropped to its lowest levels in more than half a century, the belief persists in much of America that technologies like the Internet (and activities like computer gaming) are turning otherwise healthy school children into mass murderers."
posted by palegirl on Mar 29, 2000 - 7 comments