Profiling Arabs in NYC

Over the objections of the mayor and the NYPD, some publicity hound on the NY City Council wants to enact legislation to require the NYPD to profile Arabs in its anti-terrorism efforts. Presumably, the councilman would have the cops search only Arabs entering the subway rather than the pointless random, "voluntary" searches they are now doing.

I don't know if this kind of profiling would do any good anywhere, and I doubt it, but it is idiotic to think that it could work in NYC. There are people from so many ethnic categories in NYC that it is difficult to tell who might be an Arab. How many folks, particularly if they are trying to avoid suspicion, are going to run around looking like Yassir Arafat? It is going to be difficult for an American observer to distinguish an Arab from a Syrian Jew, an Iranian, a Pakistani, an Indian, a Turk or even a Puerto Rican. Some Italians and Greeks have features that resemble some Arabs. What putative features of Arabs are the police supposed to look for? Swarthy complexions, facial hair? Arabs manifest quite a bit of variation. Should Arabs be required to wear armbands, assuming that a terrorist would comply with the armband rule?

Once word gets out, and it will, that profiling is employed, it is fairly simple to remove yourself from the profile. Dye your hair, shave your beard, dress like some other ethnicity might dress. Use someone who does not fit the profile to do your dirty work.

If you have to search or surveill or harass every Arab even though only a couple of them might be terrorists, won't that take away resources from pursuing actual leads and doing real police work?

As a final objection, I fear that the profiling program will come to entail harsher measures as it fails and as it becomes clear that it is unworkable. Arabs may be required to register and check in just like parolees, or perhaps they will be interned. Another monstrous state apparatus will have to be put in place to administer the "Arab problem". This will then expand its portfolio to encompass the "South Asian problem" and any other category that is deemed a menace.