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p>I have a big deadline right now, but I feel compelled to respond to this bulletin from the Chicago Police that asks people to “immediately report any or all … suspect activity” including note taking, camera usage, video usage and map usage. [via BoingBoing, link to flyer image].
Before 9/11 I would have said that this sort of thing makes me want to explode, but I’ve expurgated such language in the same way that I no longer say hello to friends named Jack at the airport. I’ll simply say that the bulletin makes me sad and upset. You know exactly whose photo taking will be reported as suspicious and whose wont; Chicago has the third largest South Asian American population in the country, there are plenty of browns to drop a dime about.
I’ve been on the receiving end of this myself. Once I took a pad and pen to the courtyard behind my office to try to figure out how to craft a memo for work and was interrupted by the police who said that there had been a report of “suspicious activity” namely somebody “suspicious” “taking notes”.
I showed them my note pad and explained my behavior (which wasn’t unusual for that area at all), but that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted my ID and then they followed me back to my office so that they could verify that I actually did “belong” there. All for sitting around on a nice spring day and writing on a pad. And this was in a liberal town where they actually decided to follow procedures rather than detain first and ask questions later.
While I was able to get the whole thing straightened out, this sort of policy is deeply flawed for a variety of reasons:
- The list of suspicious activities is so broad that basically you get calls about “suspicious people”, i.e. brown folk. This means that the cops waste a lot of time with false alarms which crowds out their ability to do things that actually make us safer from terrorism, like investigate. Conservatives understand opportunity costs w.r.t. economics but seem to forget it when it comes to security, which baffles me.
- Cops are less able to actually investigate terrorism because they have alienated the very people who might help them get important leads. After my experience I think twice before reporting even a stray bag somewhere, can you imagine how hesitant an immigrant Muslim might be to go to the police if they heard something suspicious?
- Not only do cops do less productive anti-terrorism work, they also do less policing overall. The last figures I saw showed the FBI reduced the number of important crime prosecutions (drugs, organized crime, etc) by 30% in the aftermath of 9/11! There were 17,448 deaths due to drunk driving in 2001 — think about how many lives might have been saved if more resources had been spent on road safety. That’s almost a 9/11 death toll every two months.
- Innocent people get arrested and swallowed up. Purna Raj Bajracharya was a tourist from Nepal who took a video of a street that had a building with an FBI office in it. He was arrested and vanished entirely, his case was wiped from the public record. He got out only because the same FBI agent who arrested him got concerned and even that FBI agent couldn’t get the system to release Bajracharya, he had to go to the Legal Aid Society.
Security theater makes white people feel safer, but it is deeply pernicious and makes us all less safe. Every security expert I’ve spoken to has strongly criticized these sorts of policies (and I’ve been friends with some fairly high ranking security folk), but the politics of security seems to over ride all other considerations.
So sad. What have we come to? OR what have ‘they’ come to!
Thanks for posting on this. I can’t believe what LA would be like in a few years if they’d implemented their proposed Muslim mapping project and then released the same statement.
How on earth will this combat any terrorism with such a sweeping call for reporting ‘suspicious activity’ with no specific definition that is logical. If i see an unattended bag, yeah sure i will report that but how can one know if someone taking photos is just tourist/photographer or a person making plans to blow something up??
This is a great initiative to instill more paranoia in people and also give idiots with any grievances a chance to rat on their targets
Here’s an idea: let’s get some LAPD officers to go to Chicago on a vacation with their Muslim mapping project, taking notes, taking pictures, talking with Muslims and using maps. Let the Chicago PD arrest the LAPD tourists, and while they are sorting out their internal namecalling, the rest of us can continue to live in peace.
I live and work very close to the trade center site in New York and you are correct that the policing is getting out of hand, it makes me uneasy to think that everytime I am talking in Hindi or Punjabi on the phone or taking pictures with my family some overzealous person may be calling 911.
I always found the “See something, say something” exhortations on the New York subway Stasi-esque. Seems like an exhortation to fuel paranoia, and it’s a pity that the emasculation of due process is a complete non-issue in American politics.
But America is still better than France. Here, all foreigners (not short-term tourists) report to the prefecture. They have to check in every year and are evaluated on their “progress”. The police routinely check your ID cards. And when I was at the
IndianBangladeshi restaurant a few weeks ago, someone from the authorities came around to “interview” the poor fellow. It was all very hushed and polite and civil just like in one of those Nazi-era movies. He’s still open though so I guess they didn’t drag him off to somewhere never to be heard off again. Still, it gave me the chills.Everyone stares at you here. I look up from lunch, or my reading or whatever and notice that someone has just quickly averted their staring gaze. This happens to others too. My Japanese friend complains about it. And even a long settled English woman. Unlike America, here, every foreigner is suspect.
Same for India too – one of the advantages of getting a PIO card is that you don’t have to check in.
🙁
pingpong, that’s a great idea. I’ve e-mailed the CIA about it and they’ve volunteered to videotape the whole thing . . .
bloody hell!
“Here, all foreigners (not short-term tourists) report to the prefecture. They have to check in every year and are evaluated on their “progress”.”
Wasn’t there something in place in NY after 9/11 when some (possibly illegal) immigrants were told they can sign up at their local police staion(?) to avoid deportation or something like that, and now they all have to report in on a routine basis. I can’t remember the details but when i read it , it seemed to be mainly taxi drivers that were targeted….
Better to be safe than sorry. It’s easy to criticize the police, but I don’t think any of you cowards would want another 9/11. It’s a post- 9/11 world; get used to it.
I was standing infront of a building, waiting for my friend to come pick me up in Newark, NJ. Then a security guard with two cops approached me to ask me for my ‘business’ there. It felt like i was in Schindler’s list.
Ennis,
I thought foreigners that intend to stay for longer than 180 days are required to register with the FRO in India, I believe foreigners travelling on a 6 month tourist visa don’t need to, good to know PIO card is useful for something 🙂
But this makes us both less safe and more sorry. Police and security experts say this is a waste of resources and makes their jobs harder. But even if they didn’t, common sense shows this is absurd.
And don’t play the 9/11 card like that. I’m from NYC born and raised. My high school prom was held at the WTC. I know people who died there and others who got out alive. Saying 9/11 doesn’t justify anything the government wants to do. If we surrender our civil liberties and our better judgment to anybody who says “terrorism! 9/11!” then the terrorists really have won.
Better to be safe than sorry. It’s easy to criticize the police, but I don’t think any of you cowards would want another 9/11. It’s a post- 9/11 world; get used to it.
That is a lame excuse for poor intelligence gathering.
No-one is doubting or unaware of the environment we’re in…Who you calling a coward??!! I lived in UK all my life until i moved here with IRA bomb threats every weekend in London train stations! and i’m sure people in India, Spain and many other countries have awareness of the environment we’re in but running around having police target anyone due to false ‘tips’ with such a broad program just wastes time as Ennis pointed out.
This depresses me. I’m sorry that happened to you. I’ve always wondered what kind of paranoid people report “suspicious activity” and on what grounds? It reminds me of a hilarious recent episode of 30 Rock where Tina Fey’s character is reluctant to report a neighbor of hers because it makes her feel like she’s being overly suspicious but gives into the “better safe than sorry” mentality. Sigh. If only everything turned out as funny as that show.
BTW, this made me giggle.
PS I work and live in NY too and had friends who worked near WTC during 9/11. so yeah don’t go there!
riding on the subway and seeing the ridiculous increase in police security has made me think twice about acting in ways that would be considered normal but for the fact that i’m brown. in principle, i am against it, but the reality is, it just works better for me to try to stay way below the radar.
that said, i was on the PATH the other day and an altercation broke out between two men that caused one of them to pull the security lever. i suppose this is to alert the police, and the train was at a station that was swarming with cops, and stayed at that station for a good several minutes after he pulled the lever. not only did no cops show up immediately, but they only stopped the train to check out the situation two stops later.
Thats cuz the cops were too busy in JSQ and Newport checkin all the brownies for IDs..i kied i kied
Ak,
True, what makes me uncomfortable is that I have lived in the area for two plus years and I still don’t feel the comfort of home, the constant feeling of scrutiny and being made to feel like an outsider gets tiring after a while.
Don’t get me wrong, I try to be as inconspicuous as I can, but the constant worrying about something takes away the fun of living in a city like New York.
i was on the PATH the other day
tell them to move to rural virginia. nothing bad ever happens there.
My high school prom was held at the WTC
really? thats intersting.. which floor?
If we surrender our civil liberties and our better judgment to anybody who says “terrorism! 9/11!”
where did you get a copy of the 2004 republican election strategy?
Where is PDA usage in that list? I demand that to be included, becuz I hate PDAs
Well, Ennis, if you had read Schedule 58, article (p) of the American Citizenship and Naturalization act, you would have realized that an essential prerequisite for residence in this land of the free is demonstrable monthly purchase of Fair and Handsome, now with American double strength peptides (00:27).
Prafool is right. This is a post-9/11 world we live in. We wouldn’t want another 9/11. But every year, despite our heightened security levels, it happens again, around the same time in September. Since we’re living in the post-9/11 part of 2007, I’m keeping especially vigilant. This post-9/11 season, I urge you all to be wary of nomadic groups infiltrating our neighborhoods, extorting money and communicating their subversive message.
I’ve already noticed several posts on this very site defending the Muslim faith, so I’m going to go ahead and report your website to the LAPD, and myself for commenting on it.
9/11 9/11
I think you are misconstruing what I am saying. Try telling someone who’s lost a loved on on 9/11 about you being inconvenienced by security every now and then. I don’t think you’d get much sympathy. The point is that we all have to give up a little to be safe post 9/11, and it irks me to no end to hear about people whining about having to answer simple questions to security. There never has been absolute freedom here, and certainly not anywhere else, and what makes you think you should have it. If you want it go buy some island and go live on it (and pray Osama doesn’t find you).
Prafool, despite our best efforts, we have not been able to remove the risk of 9/11. In fact, we had one just about 80 days ago. In times like this, we need to redouble our efforts so we are rid of the scourge of 9/11. Down with the Gregorian Calendar!
Prafool, how is this just an “inconvenience”?
Innocent people get arrested and swallowed up. Purna Raj Bajracharya was a tourist from Nepal who took a video of a street that had a building with an FBI office in it. He was arrested and vanished entirely, his case was wiped from the public record. He got out only because the same FBI agent who arrested him got concerned and even that FBI agent couldn’t get the system to release Bajracharya, he had to go to the Legal Aid Society.
I think you’re oversimplifying the situation and purposely misconstruing what ennis is saying.
Notice from your friendly neighborhood police station: To commemorate the replacement of the Julian calendar with the Giulianian calendar, we will provide you with an additional free cavity search this holiday season. Merry Christmas!
ah! prafool brings back memories…..for example this classical one from Mr. Kobayashi
and this one
Yes terrorism is a risk; and it is a risk we can do something about (unlike say being hit by a lightening, about which we can arguably do less, though the probability of being a victim of terrorism is about the same–i think less if i recall correctly– as being hit by lightening); but all these ham fisted efforts are nothing more than window dressing,and as ennis points out, there is some consensus among security professionals that they are largely useless. if everyone thought like this, life would come to a standstill in mumbai or delhi or any other large indian city.
Some of our neighbors called the cops regarding ‘suspicious activity’ in our house, because of the times when we have a bunch of relatives visiting, or when my mother holds baba pujas at our house (I find this latter reason hilarious by the way, it’s very ironic). This happened twice actually.
I’m guessing Windows on the World? Top floor. Traditionally my high school had it there too, but of course by the time I graduated we couldn’t.
oh the second block quote is not from mr. kobaysahi, but me responding to, and agreeing with, his comments
sorry, last one; there was a typo in #31, should have been classic one from Mr. Kobayashi
I have told such people about such stories, and they have been shocked and sympathetic.
And how soon the story of Jose Padilla, who was once considered one of the most dangerous terrorists to be apprehended on US soil, was reduced to a complete mental shambles and a wreck of a person after subhuman treatment during years of detention without charging, and then finally convicted on some nebulous charges of conspiracy, all this significantly based on torture generated evidence from Abu Zubaydah.
THIS is what we have to sign up for to live in America?
In 36, I meant “And how soon we have forgotten…”
I live in Chicago and never felt like I was being watched by the police or anything. On the other hand I have never walked around with a notebook in one hand a map in the other and a camera around my neck. I do walk around with the biggest back back known to mankind and have never been asked to open it or anything.
I hate feeling compromised! “OOHH, I better not take a picture of my little niece by that building or some white lady might get scared and call the police.”
Caring a map is suspicous no matter who has one. Its called a hand held GPS device, welcome to the 21st century.
Cant this be bad for tourism? More brown people are getting money and if they ever decide to avoid the New York\LA area and come to Chicago and get harrased then say bye to any of their friends ever coming here.
To be honest, I never felt like I was deterred from doing something in public because I am brown. Then again, I’m female, and I don’t wear any obvious religious head coverings/symbols. I doubt this will deter brown tourism…
Prafool: If they are going to profile, why must they be obtuse about it ? Ennis is a turbanned Sikh as I understand. They don’t know jack about cultural geography let alone have the ability to glean useful info from the noise.
There’s no reason why every increase in vigilance has to be turned into a white vs brown thing.
Chill out. Take pictures. Carry subway maps. Nothing will happen to you.
M. Nam
If all fails, bring along a token white guy.
Prafool writes: “The point is that we all have to give up a little to be safe post 9/11”
No, the point is that we are not all equally having to “give up a little.”
Sucking up having to remove my shoes before going through security, pack all my carry-on toiletries into a quart size ziploc bag, and show my ID and tickets numerous times – okay, that’s a resonable price for increased security and we all have to pay it.
I have not, and probably never will be approached by an officer for jotting notes in a public place, for recycling paper (remember that post?), or for having a gathering of my side of the family at my home. That is because I am not brown. That’s not an inconvenience. It’s called prejudice.
Moornam, in logicland, we think of you as superman because of the unbelievably dangerous leaps you make. This Icelandic woman was detained at JFK because she overstayed her visa several years ago. One case where a white person has been detained for longer than she should have (she did violate regulations) does not show that law enforcement agencies are equally targeting both white and brown people for surveillance. This Icelandic woman must have been identified after her passport must have run afoul of some criteria in a computerized database, while this thread focuses on people who are presumed suspicious on sight (i.e. without procedure or proof). In one case there is an actual procedure/protocol that is followed before an authority acts, while in the other case mere suspicion is the basis of detention. I don’t doubt that some credible/reliable means of profiling terrorists or their co-conspirators are necessary to prevent them from causing damage, but the current system is flawed for the reasons Ennis enumerated in his post.
Is everybody giving up an equal amount? I’d be happy if that were true. How about, every time a person, brown or white, is hassled by the securtiy services and it turns out to be unfounded, everybody else chops in to give him or her $100. That way, it won’t just be the hairy, turbanned, and brown that give up a little because of nineleven, it will be everybody.
I think this is a great idea for Rudy Giuliani, the true nineleleven candidate that knows that “we all” need to give up a little to be safe.
Ikram, that is a brilliant idea! Should appeal to so- called “conservatives” too (not the statist types, but nonetheless…)
…meanwhile a guy in front of me at the store this morning was wearing a sweater that said “der bomber” . Is this some new hip brand?
MoorNam wrote:
I’ve been doing this for some years now. I’ve been to numerous cities in the US, national and state parks, and not a single incident where a cop detained or questioned me.
The only place where I feel being ‘watched’ are airports. I am always the “randomly” selected guy whose cabin baggage gets checked twice. I don’t mind it, maybe because I’m used to it now.
I have an architect friend who did his undergrad in India and came to Perdue University as a grad student in 2003. Being interested in buildings/structures he tends to look at them a little bit more than your average Joe/Ramu. He did that at an airport in Illinois. The next thing he knew was 4 police cars chasing him down the highway. After some questioning they let him off but he seemed pretty shaken up by the dramatics.
Replace the underlined phrase with “car gets pulled up by traffic cops” , “grandparents were brought over in a ship from Africa”, “a** got tasered in a college lib.”, “gas sation got shot at by ignorant Arizon hicks”
Doesn’t help getting used to it.