Round up the usual suspects

How far should ethnic profiling go in the quest to nab the World Trade Center terrorists?

By Damien Cave

Sept. 14, 2001 | Several weary passengers were trying to fly home from John F. Kennedy International Airport Thursday when a band of gun-wielding FBI agents boarded their San Jose-bound flight. The agents had a specific target: one Arab man who supposedly had a false pilot's license. But their investigative sweep extended far beyond that individual.

As one passenger, Mike Glass, told the New York Times, "Anyone with dark skin or who spoke with an accent was taken aside and searched. Then they went to any male with too much facial hair."

The sweep largely failed. Officials, who pulled passengers from several planes, ended up with at least 12 detainees, but only one of them, apparently, could be related to Tuesday's horrific attacks on New York and Washington -- the FBI released everyone except man with the pilot's license.

The worldwide investigation has led to other mistaken arrests too. On Wednesday, German police arrested an Arab man who was supposedly involved in the terrorist plot only to release him, while on Friday, the Coast Guard detained two people coming off a four-day cruise. Officials wouldn't say whether their actions were related to Tuesday's attacks, but the association seems likely.

Any investigation as urgent and massive as this week's is bound to chase down a lot of blind alleys. But is there ever a time when it's appropriate to treat anyone with dark features, an accent and travel plans as a terrorism suspect? Does this extraordinarily vicious attack justify especially broad police action?

This issue -- a tug of war between civil liberties and national security -- is hardly unique to this crisis. Since 1861, when Abraham Lincoln suspended the principle of habeas corpus during the Civil War, giving police power to imprison people without a trial, America has struggled with how to both protect and serve its citizens in the midst of a national emergency. There have been plenty of mistakes: The Espionage Act of 1917 was used to unfairly silence antiwar sentiment during World War I, and during World War II, police imprisoned thousands of Japanese Americans in internment camps without any signs of treason.

But history may not repeat itself. While warning that limits need to be put in place to ensure that law enforcement keeps itself in check, Arab-Americans and analysts predict that a moderate balance between rights and security will likely win out.

"There's going to be an impact on people's freedom of movement, but I'm not sure it will go beyond that," says David Bennett, professor of U.S. history at Syracuse University, who specializes in right-wing movements. "People who fear a complete or substantial loss of civil liberties are overreacting."

So far, the Arab community has treated the detainments and unwarranted arrests with forbearance. Though "one could be upset about [the arrests based on ethnicity], the authorities deserve the benefit of the doubt," says Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "There's been a gigantic attack, and there's a gigantic conspiracy that needs to be rooted out." Given the circumstances, he says, "Profiling is warranted."

"We in the Arab community need to have a little bit of forbearance, a little bit of patience," he adds. "We should be slightly more tolerant than usual."

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