Lieberman to the rescue

I heard today that there is a movement to rebadge Fox News reporters to be "opinion reporters", rather than real reporters.

I grew up in a time when people were afraid to go into black neighborhoods because they thought all black people were criminals. The KKK was an acceptable organization.

If you turn the clock back further, there was a movement led by a dictator that went after Jews. I'll say no more on the topic.

This is racial profiling pure and simple. It gives me shivers to think that we are starting this up again with a new race of people. I don't want to repeat that past. It always starts in very small ways, and usually by allowing the behavior to be acceptable. It isn't.

I caught this on Tucker Carlson's show today, on MSNBC. He had some guy from an Islamic advocacy group on, defending the "John Doe" lawsuits.

To heck with political correctness - if somebody is acting out of the ordinary, prior to boarding a plane, I WANT them checked out REGARDLESS of their ethnicity.

lol that can be said of all reporters. i just wonder what did you find wrong with that report?

and i don see how, giving people protection from dumb law suits for doing the right thing=kkk=germany= racial profiling.

All they are asking people to do , report things that seem out of place.

Unfortunately this will enable people to have others checked out BECAUSE of their ethnicity. Another racial hate law under the guise of `protection'.

Yuh, America. The land of the free, home of the brave. As long as you're of the right colour and religious persuasion.

ok that is sooooooo out of line. This coming from a country that banned books
show me where is there hate, in that law. All i does is protect people from dumb law suits,
which you always say should be stopped.

i would add, that in some cases there is nothing wrong with racial profiling.
Almost all attacks are carried out by arab males between the ages of 17-35 another report it at 16-28 male, with 15% being female. Still it Makes no sense to stop a 70 year old white, black, asian, arab, women now does it?

anyway, all this this is doing is trying to protect people who see something, strange, so they can report it. But where is the comment about BBc reports of british police using it, or the police in yoru country, Forgot that part did you? just asking

I don't think it's out of line at all. This is just legalising racism, IMO. Just like all the horrible laws in Australia that are doing the same thing. You can turn around and criticise Australia as much as you want because you know what? I'll always agree with you. What is going on now with Dr Haneef puts paid to the hysterical and discriminatory nature of our new anti-terrorism laws.

And to answer your question - I thought you said this would ONLY target people who were acting suspiciously? Therefore, if a `70-year-old white, black, asian or female' person were acting suspiciously then yes, I would expect them to be reported too. But it won't happen, because anyone NOT of middle eastern persuasion will probably have excuses made for their odd behaviour, whereas an Arab sitting on a bus will probably be targeted just because he's Arab.

You wouldn't do it, Bruce, and neither would I, but that doesn't mean there's not plenty out there who will use this law to report everyone they can see who looks different just because of the culture of conditioned fear we all live in - fuelled by legislation such as this. It isn't designed to stop lawsuits, it's designed to allow people to be racist with government-sanction and immunity.

AS with anytihng, there will be people that abuse, it. But why would you report a 70 year old for acting suuspiciously if you think you may be sued for doing it?

in the case of the flying , they did what they did on purpose, acted the way they did , to try and cause fear with the follow passages.

I hvae been a plane when a muslim wanted to get up and pray. even had him ask me which way was east(sorry i was on train) , some people got worried,
i just pointed and said that way, and went back to reading my book.. Now if he and some friends where acting like the ones in the airport, i would have reported them myself(or i should say, asked them what the heck they thought they where doing)

But like you say - some people got worried. And out of those some, there would be some who would report this as suspicious, and be protected by the law for doing so, which is wrong. Yes, there will always be people who abuse - why develop laws to protect them?

We were doing the grocery shopping the other day and were rudely pushed to the side by two young guys barging through the shopping centre, loudly and aggressively proclaiming that they were in `***king Australia, not ***king `arab-land' or `ching-land''....you get the idea. They were SO offensive. Again, the exception, not the norm. But still there, loud and proud, in the middle of society. Why protect people like that with legislation that allows them to vilify and target the people they wrongfully hate?

that is kids being kids, which is a pain in the butt. and not what i would call
suspiciously.

how law suit for turning in someone for acting that way. It would not stop them from filing hassment changes aganist people now would it.

i do understand where some of the fear is coming from. But i dont think majority of american, or bristh, or people in your country would do that.

if you apply, a case whre you think child abuse is or you think your hearing, someone beating up there wife, you call the cops, cops find out that is not what is going, Now, shoud the peole who called be sued? if so, why waste time trying to call the cops, just let them beat p the kid, or the wife.
welcome back 50 years where people just kept there mouth shut instead of telling.

Not at all, but since when have there needed to be laws to protect people who report others on suspicion of child / spousal / animal abuse? And in today's society, these things cannot be put on the same level as terrorism. Because there is hysteria concerning terrorism, and where there is hysteria there is irrationality. Legislating to protect people who are hysterical and irrational, and who WILL dob people in just because of their religion or race, is taking us back a lot more than 50 years.

all three kill people. How many be in your country there is not a hysteria about child abuse here there is. Heck here, they had a huge case where a women took some pic of her new baby playing in the bathtub, she shared them with some friends, and they went after her for child porn.

Sorry i dont see the problem with saying, you hvae protection if you report something. It wuld be up the police would it not to make the choice if something looks wrong or not.

All they are tyring to do, is make it so that you or me or joe blow on the street gets to scared of losing, to report what may be a crime.

but really i am still missing where people seem to think that is a racist thing.
anyone, not just arabs or muslims can blow up stuff.. the biggest thing i have been hearing about is ecco terror that been popping up more and more here.
would that not also count? it must since terror is in there.

I didn't mean that the law itself is racist, but that it has the potential to enable racism with impunity. This is why I think it's dangerous.

so which is worse, the chance that a few nut jobs will abuse it. which since
the i would say 99% of the nuts jobs, wont even know about the law anyway.

or the chance that a few nut jobs will kill several thousand people again.

If i thought the law took away any freedoms, i would be right behind you. in support, You would think that such a law would not be needed. however as is now being proven, it is.

Maybe if someone had reported Tim McVey there wouldn't have been the OKC bombing. Maybe if someone had reported the 9/11 hijackers, they wouldn't have been successful.

It doesn't have to be against middle-eastern people. I remember a story where some guy (white) went nuts on a plane, and the only ones who responded were men over 60. There were plenty of younger, able bodied people on the plane, but none of them wanted to get involved. Why should we open up the ones who will take action to lawsuits?

The way the bill is written, if someone makes a false report (i.e. "They were praying to Allah" with no other issues) they are not protected.

BTW, I'm flying tomorrow. With all of the reports coming out this past week about terrorists doing "dry runs" on planes seeing what they can get on board (things with the same consistency as C4, or packaged to look like bombs, or components of bombs), I'm actually nervous. First time since 9/11 that I've actually been nervous about flying. And you know what? If I see something suspicious, you darn well better believe I'll report it regardless of skin color.

This is going to be slightly unexpected...

I agree that people should be protected for reporting something they feel is suspicious. We can't pretend that people who aren't white never do anything wrong either. A much more inane example of this prospect is when I am at work, and I catch a shoplifter, if they are black they call you racist about 75% of the time. I'm not. When I see someone acting like a shoplifter, I watch them, and they're a lot more obvious than they think they are. Often they get mad and act self-righteous that they're being watched-- strangely if you start watching someone who isn't doing anything wrong they don't even notice.

It doesn't take much effort on my part to imagine someone who is Arab in appearance, on an airplane, with bad intentions to cry and complain in the same way, to start threatening everyone with lawsuits and calling them racist, when in this case it isn't.

At the same time, I do see the point about people using it for the wrong reasons. It could be done. However, we live in a time where entire buildings are evacuated and the bomb squad called because somebody left a tool box in a stairwell. I had a friend in high school who was detained at the airport for hours because he had been to Saudi Arabia visiting family. These things aren't right, and I disagree with regular profiling as well. All that does is force them to change tactics and hit us unprepared, which is why drug smugglers often look like grandparents on vacation and suicide bombers now bring children along.

But this reminds me of the Good Samaritan law- people were suing others for saving their lives. Now, if you give someone CPR or otherwise attempt to save their life, they can't sue you because they had a DNR or broke a rib.

Anyway, all it prevents is someone from suing you. Less lawsuits would always be a good thing.