TalkLeft links to the NYT article "Bush Issues Federal Ban on Racial Profiling", which includes this line:
Arab-American and civil rights groups said the exemptions in the White House policy would give the authorities legal justification to single out Middle Easterners and others who may fall under suspicion, and they questioned whether the new policy - issued as "guidance" - would be aggressively enforced.
As soon as I read that, I immediately went into CAIR/Ibrahim Hooper watch-mode. Which Arab-American group could the NYT be referring to? Hmmm... There's no mention of the specific group here on Page 1 of the article.
But, turning to Page 2, well, there it is in all its "mainstream" glory:
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the new policy would do little to mollify Arab-Americans.
"There seem to be a lot of `buts' and `howevers' here that would allow profiling of Arabs and Muslims to continue," Mr. Hooper said.
He said he found the policy paradoxical in light of a report from the Justice Department this month criticizing the detentions of hundreds of illegal immigrants, most of them Middle Eastern, after the 9/11 attacks.
"This is a problem that's certainly widespread, and I don't think this policy does anything to help the situation," Mr. Hooper said.
If you aren't familiar with CAIR, see the post "Undesirable influence" and many of the other posts in the Terrorism category. One of the links is to this article:
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he supports [the U.S. adopting sharia law].
"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the Star Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."
CAIR is currently taking money from Saudis to put "educational" materials in U.S. libraries.
As for the NYT, while they're introspecting, perhaps they should review their "who do we go to for soundbites and how do we describe them" file.
Terrorism · Tue, 06/17/2003 - 19:57 · Importance: 1
Independent, in-depth coverage of immigration, politics, and media bias since 2002. Also: multiculturalism, Los Angeles, California, privacy, and occasionally celebrities and wacky humor...
If you can't find what you're looking for, see the About page or use the navigation features to the right.
Atom feed · RSS 2.0 feed · RSS 0.91 feed · WML
