Civil Rights

“Perfect Terrorist”: Looking into Mukasey’s Modeling Techniques!

Published

July 9, 2008

Abu Reem

If [(Arab+Muslim+Trip to Pakistan+ …) / (age+ #of prayers/day+ …)] > X,
THEN suspect
ELSE patriot

Ok, not exactly. But Mukasey, a strong supporter of the Patriot Act, and who argued in a WSJ piece that:

“current institutions and statutes are not well suited to even the limited task of supplementing . . . a military effort to combat Islamic terrorism.”

I talked about Mukasey before his AG approval in this post “Injudicious and Malicious” Judge Mukasey : An Attorney General Nightmare For Muslims?. As expected, he has been busy developing (constitutionally) dirty techniques, using public and government records to create “terrorist profiles”. So, even if you did nothing wrong in your life, or you were the biggest activist against terrorism; your age, ethnicity, national origin, trips “back home”, and I am guessing your “religious profile” (perhaps your membership to an Islamic organization) could make you a “prime suspect”.

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We already know that Mukasey’s record shows his utter disregard and near disdain towards Muslims (read previous post), so it is not entirely surprising that he would go after the civil rights of Muslims & Arabs. Though I would have hoped that he would leave his prejudices behind for the sake of fairness and justice in this most important position of authority. Of course the obvious intent of racial and ethnic profiling is buried under “access to military training” (paintball??) and “travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity” (entire Muslim world, barring Turkey and Malaysia??), and “a person’s race and ethnicity” (Muslim, Arab??). The article discussing this new policy points out:

The policy, first reported last week by The Associated Press, would let FBI agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious. Among the factors that could make a U.S. citizen or resident the subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.

The rush that Mukasey seems to be in, coupled with the blanket of secrecy (like most other illegal Bush programs), seems to display a serious intent of getting something in before the new President takes office. He wants to leave his mark in the new McCarthyism against Muslims. And he wants to do it fast!

What can you do? Write to the members of the Senate Judiciary committee (especially its chairman, Patrick Leahy), urging them to pay close attention to this program and urging them to not allow the passage of this program, because such profiling is against the constitutional independent check of equal protection under the law.

More on the constitutional 14th Amendment (info. gleaned from my business law book):

Though the 14th amendment applies to states in original writing, equal protection guarantee has been incorporated within the 5th amendment due process, so it also restricts federal government. The guarantee applies to ALL situations in which government classifies or distinguishes people. “The law inevitably makes distinction among people, benefiting or burdening some groups but not others. Equal protection doctrine, as developed by the Supreme Court, sets the standards such distinctions must meet in order to be constitutional”.

Moreover, there are certain basis for classification that require very rigorous equal protection review, and this includes race, national origin, and even one’s citizenship status! Obviously the DOJ program being discussed here cuts straight through race, national origin and ethnicity, and thus needs to be vehemently questioned.

Make sure to use the constitutional discussion when writing to the Senators, it will make you look much more informed and will give the Senators more pause for thought.

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Abu Reem

Abu Reem is one of the founders of MuslimMatters, Inc. His identity is shaped by his religion (Islam), place of birth (Pakistan), and nationality (American). By education, he is a ChemE, topped off with an MBA from Wharton. He has been involved with Texas Dawah, Clear Lake Islamic Center and MSA. His interests include politics, cricket, and media interactions. Career-wise, Abu Reem is in management in the oil & gas industry (but one who still appreciates the "green revolution").

23 Comments

Amad

July 9, 2008 at 12:00 PM

I was hoping for some other IT folks to provide other programming option to catch the next “budding terrorist”.. thoughts?

Reply
Hassan

July 9, 2008 at 12:07 PM

if (name.equalsIgnoreCase(“Muksasey”) || name.equalsIgnoreCase(“Gonzales”)) {
waterboard();
electricuteBalls();
}

Reply
Amad

July 9, 2008 at 12:24 PM

Very funny Hassan! good one.

Here is the message I sent to Leahy. You can use this as a guide/template. It will take you only 5 minutes:

Honorable Senator Leahy,

I write to you with deep concern regarding the yet-to-be-finalized DOJ program that will use among other things, race, ethnicity, countries visited to screen potential terrorists.

This is nothing more than a fishing expedition that is based on unconstitutional techniques, because such profiling is against the constitutional independent check of equal protection under the law.

As you are well aware, the 14th amendment, and by its incorporation in spirit into the 5th amendment due process, guarantees equal protection under the law applies to ALL situations in which government classifies or distinguishes people.

Moreover, there are certain basis for classification that require very rigorous equal protection review, and this includes race, national origin, and even one’s citizenship status.

Obviously the DOJ program being discussed here cuts straight through race, national origin and ethnicity, and thus needs to be vehemently questioned.

Mr. Mukasey’s past-record, including his stance on terrorism, as evidenced by his op-ed piece in the WSJ on 8/22/07 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010505), where he commented in a position remarkably similar to the Bush administration stance for holding up Combatants in Guantanamo:

“Instead, when it is examined closely, this case [Jose Padilla’s case] shows why current institutions and statutes are not well suited to even the limited task of supplementing what became, after Sept. 11, 2001, principally a military effort to combat Islamic terrorism.”

Another article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/washington/24mukasey.html?adxnnl=1&ref=nyregion&adxnnlx=1190659045-dxz/hVh8rvuWZqdW0yuMBQ)
provides more indications of the deep prejudices and biases that Mr. Mukasey seems to harbor against Muslims.

Hence, it is not all that surprising that he would take such an action. But the rush to do so, clearly to preempt Presidential elections (and a new president), is highly suspicious, and I hope the Democratic-controlled Judiciary committee will not allow such a farce of a program, in the “advertised” interest of national security. Such programs don’t make America stronger, rather the constant digs at the constitution and the fabric of this nation, make America weaker.

Regards,
Amad

Reply
MR

July 9, 2008 at 12:24 PM

$(religion).function ({
$this(‘islam’),
$(‘muslim’).no-freedom-of-religion;
$this(‘other’),
$(‘non-muslim’).freedom-of-religion;
});

Reply
Ahmad AlFarsi

July 9, 2008 at 3:08 PM

In the first snippit of code written by Amad:

If [(Arab+Muslim+Trip to Pakistan+ …) / (age+ #of prayers/day+ …)] > X,
THEN suspect
ELSE patriot

#of prayers/day should DEFINITELY be in the numerator (and probably as a multiplicative factor as opposed to an additive one), so something more like this perhaps:

If [(#of prayers/day)*(Arab+Muslim+Trip to Pakistan+ …) / (age)] > X,
THEN suspect
ELSE patriot

Thus 0 prayers/day means the LHS is zero, which always results in patriot, but 5 a day would greatly increase the probability of the LHS being greater than X (given X is a random variable, perhaps with a parametric one… normal distribution with mean = (Terror Alert level)*(scaling factor), and std. dev. = (Current population of US Muslims)/(1 million).) Any other proposals for X?

Reply
Amad

July 9, 2008 at 3:19 PM

Now Ahmad, you have got my engineering/stats juices flowing…

I agree on the numerator/denominator switch. I think an exponential function would be better. Furthermore the exponent function would have a multiplier with the # of times prayers are in mosque. Also added a beard function. Women are exempt for now. Also added a RAND ranking on logarithmic scale, with liberal/progressive/secularist/sufis receiving a 0.1, and “fundamentalist wahabis” receiving a 100.0. See RAND Advisory System here.

So, #of prayers range 0-5
prayers in mosque: 1-5 (set min=1)
age>12 and <95 (generous to kids and senior citizens)
Beard size in cm (set min=1), unbearded individuals still threat.

If {[#of prayers^(2*(prayers in mosque)]*(Arab+Muslim+Trip to Pakistan+ BeardSize…)*(RAND Ranking) / (age)] > X},

I won’t touch panametrics– leave that to MIT gurus like u.

Reply
AnonyMouse

July 9, 2008 at 3:31 PM

MuslimMatters has officially been taken over by the geeks.
*Goes into hiding*

Reply
ibnabeeomar

July 9, 2008 at 4:14 PM

im a comp sci guy and this is all way too nerdy for me

Reply
Musa Maguire

July 9, 2008 at 4:58 PM

Honorable Senator Leahy,

Remember in the 90s, when Malcolm X the movie came out, and everyone was wearing X caps, and Nike put out the Air Raids with a big “X” across the front, and Hakeem Olajuwon was winning championships, and all the rappers claimed to be Muslim…back then, Islam was cool. Unfortunately, due to America’s misguided and narrow-minded immigration policies, our Muslim communities have been overrun by computer geeks from all corners of the world. Can you please arrest them and send them to cool camp?

Thank you,

A concerned citizen

Reply
Haroon

July 10, 2008 at 7:43 AM

You NERDS!

Reply
Kashif

July 10, 2008 at 8:47 AM

LOL – Hassan that was great!

Reply
Seeker7

July 10, 2008 at 10:33 AM

**scratches head** :S

Reply
Asim

July 10, 2008 at 12:18 PM

Does it matter if we email or mail our letter?

Reply
Amad

July 10, 2008 at 12:45 PM

Asim, mailing is usually considered more effective than electronically.

See here on “how to get Politician’s attention”

But some action is better than none, so even if I can get my fellow Muslims to simply click and copy and paste, I think I’ll be happy :) The more motivated ones, with good questions like you asked, can help the cause by snail-mailing!

jak for asking… i learned something new myself

wsalam

Reply
Amad

July 10, 2008 at 1:12 PM

And someone (or two or three), please STUMBLE this!

Reply
Alima

July 10, 2008 at 8:03 PM

stumbled!

Reply
Suhail

July 11, 2008 at 4:43 PM

And now we have Obama voting for FISA. These politicians can never be trusted. I wonder what he is going to do next.

Reply
Hassan

July 11, 2008 at 6:00 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/11/obama.netroots/index.html

I am sure Obama’s apologists would have some way of twisting it as well.

Reply
Yus from the Nati

July 15, 2008 at 12:14 PM

@ AnonyMouse: HAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH

Reply
Raz

July 15, 2008 at 2:03 PM

Want a peek into the rise of an opportunist…Obamafiles pls tread with caution….read this article from Baltomore Chronicle, http://baltimorechronicle.com/2008/071508Zeese.shtml

Reply
patb

July 16, 2008 at 1:10 AM

I’m not familiar enough with this issue to agree/disagree with the profiling tech being put forth here but I do have a question.
If you were resp. for combating terrorism and focused upon wmd being utilized by an agent of a radical group (pick one) within the continental US how would you proceed?
How would you focus limited resources to maximize effectiveness?
You only have to fail once to lose in a big way. Chem, bio and nuke are the systems in your charter.
How would you balance individual rights and protect those with those rights?
Everyday hundreds of thousands of containers are offloaded in ports. Thousands of flights arrive dailey. 20 to 30 thousand 18 wheeler trucks cross our borders and trains from Mexico and Canada arrive hourly.

.

Reply
tabman

August 18, 2008 at 2:20 AM

while (Muslim)
{
print(“Terrorist”);
}

:P

Reply
Hassan

September 13, 2008 at 12:55 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/washington/13justice.html?ref=us

Reply