Quote:
Originally Posted by polak
Okay. I get it. My situation would harm someone and it is a UN human rights violation and I'd deserve to be tried at world court  
Say you're race has been responsible for a string of terrorist attacks and your at an airport (great time to think of another hypothetical situation) and you get profiled for extra screening, so they take you in a room and go through your bag.
You might feel embarrassed about someone going through your stuff, you might feel offended about being picked based on profiling and you might be a little pissed that your time is being wasted but that, to me, doesn't seem like much of a burden on you if this system is proven to be more effective then random spot checks.
Is that better? Thats what I meant by "not harming you" |
Well, in my view, that does harm me. Presuming that, due to this string of terrorist attacks, I am already viewed with distrust by some of my fellow passengers, this only embarrasses and alienates me more. To me, that would be more than just a trifling inconvenience. However, as valo noted, in places like airports, there is a diminished expectation of privacy, and perhaps in these rare circumstances such a practice could be justified (although, frankly, I don't think it could; screening should either be totally random or be specific based on some sort of credible information [for example, a tip that a middle-aged italian man will be boarding a plane at YYC sometime this week with a bomb might justify specific searches on all middle-aged italian men at YYC for that week.])
Let me put a similar, but slightly different, hypothetical to you: are police in Toronto justified in pulling over cars driven by black males? would you be comfortable with this practice?