Profiling in this day and age is needed to keep us all safe and secure. I am sure it will be done without invading anyones constitutional rights, and without merit.

Please not the sarcasm in my title. If we start to profile people (legally) we are giving the up the freedoms and the rights our country is based on. There is no point in protecting our country, if it isn't our country we are protecting. Our core and our beliefs are based on freedoms that other countries do not have. We have terrorist because we believe in these rights, why conform to their beliefs! It means they win!

I am amazed that people are so opposed to profiling. We 'profile' people every day. We try to size up the person who is in the next car to see if he will suddenly become violent. We look carefully at our neighbors to see if it is safe to keep the windows open. We look at the person next to us at the airport and consider if they could do us harm. I think I would like to have professionals doing the profiling so I don't have to. Maybe if we had more profiling we could avoid problems before they become incidents. As I said, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.

I do not like it when my constitutional rights are threatened. It makes me scared that we are heading in a "big brother" direction. I do not want to be subjected to random searches if some idiot cops are bored and you know they will get a large bonus if they find something so they might start falsifying information. This just sounds like a bad idea all around.

I feel we have to do some profiling. You know the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". We have to learn from our mistakes. Profiling helps us have a chance to stop the bad guys before they get us. Better to err on the side of caution. Maybe you can't live with that. But, guess what, a lot of people won't live without it!

Profiling has been around for a very long time. It's just that now it is more public. We need a form of profiling in this world. It's just one more step to keeping us all safe.

This has been coming for a long time. The government can control all aspects of our lives all in the name of stopping terrorism. Shouldn't the government fear its citizens because we hold the power instead of the other way around?

Its rather very depressing to hear that the government would go to such an extent , profiling has to be imposed means imposing it on obama himself , cause hes of black descent , if he has the rights to exist in his unharmful motive in america , other residents are also privileged the same , if profiling is excecuted , it may blow up as an immense issue , further growing in shaking the rule of democracy of america itself .

By itself, profiling sounds like a really good thing. It would appear rational, and logical because after all, people unconciously 'profile' in their heads naturally - based on previous experience with a certain race or type of people.

The PROBLEM with allowing the government to do this legally, however is when you think about WHERE it will stop. TODAY the government wants to profile.. and its to 'protect' us from terrorists.. and to keep us all safe. However, WHAT will be the criteria used for the his so called legal profiling? Today... its 'muslem extremist' types... but tomorrow will it be Korean types.. and then because no one can tell the difference between Koreans and chinese, then will they start profiling chinese just to be safe.. and then japanese.. and then, micronesian.. the list is endless. Before you know it, EVERYONE will be profiled in some way or another 'for safety sake'. This is prejudice in its worse form.

Then you have the problem of creeping law. We allow this to become 'normal' law and it relaxes the strictures placed on law. Soon it will be ok for employers to 'profile' and then schools and then.. then.. then. Additionally, once we give the government THIS kind of power over us, they will take another step closer to wiping out our freedoms. What will the next law be 'for our safety' that they can brain wash us into accepting? And before we know it, we will be a communist country 'for safety sake'. This is a scary 'first step' if you ask me.. and there are other ways of protecting our precious Nation, than pure and unadulterated prejudice!!

Sadly, the powers that be can and will use everything available to them to increase their power. Mr Hoover must have dreamt of information gathering powers such as this

If it were an algorithm finding terrorists, it would be great, but if humans are the doers of the profiling, human error and prejudice will be key aspects of the problem. Furthermore, even the FBI doesn't need to have access to every-day Americans' information.

It's great the Justice Department is considering to allow the FBI to engage in racial profiling. The only issue is that it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Seriously, people, think about this: do you want law enforcement to engage in activities that will all but guarantee these people will never be convicted of anything they are charged with because the evidence is going to be thrown out of court? If these people really are as bad as the FBI claims, then at least make sure we can build a case against them! If not, then such a policy actually WEAKENS our ability to stop terrorism, since we won't be able to imprison them and keep them from doing something the next time.

I think We really do not need this kind of Government control.

Of course, there was no "right of privacy" written into the original Constitution or Bill of Rights. Still, if we consider "due process", investigating ANYONE for "no reason" without independent review by a justice of the peace cannot be conscientiously supported.

I cannot believe there are people who say that racial profiling actually works. I recommend a book called "Civil Liberties vs. National Security in a Post-9/11 World". It has a large section on racial profiling.

I am still surprised how many people believe all those 911 setup scenario. Like in the world wars and other events in the past, manufactored events have been created to gain control over the masses.

Its like Orwell is coming into life right before your eyes!

There are a several aspects of this argument that I would like to address:

First, let's make some distinction between what we expect of foreign nationals who are visiting our county and American citizens. I think the government has a right to investigate those who wish to enter the country, admit only those they do not consider dangerous and monitor their actions while here. I don't think they should be doing any of that with US citizens.

Next, when the recent administration does attemped to monitor US citizens, it does a lousy job of it. We are tapping the phones of innocent people and taking the needle-in-a-haystack approach to finding terrorists. 85-yr-olds are removing their shoes at the airport and throwing out their mouthwash. Come on, people!

Finally, we seem to be getting confused about what the various intelligence agencies are for and what the court system is designed to do. Before phones are tapped, a judge is supposed to determine whether or not a warrant is justified.

Equity is a very important concept. Allowing the government to arbitrarily treat certain people as suspects, without proof that would pass a judge's scrutiny, violates the law of the land.

I find it scary that we do not get more upset about this. By allowing the government access to these, we are allowing them into our lives. While I have nothing to hide, I do not need the government monitoring my life until they decide I have done something wrong. If the government is so conderned about certain people, they need to go through the proper channels and get the appropriate warrants in order to watch them and monitor their conversations. We should not write a blank check.

Considering the high risk that we face if traveling, I feel that the government already uses profiling. It is not unrealistic to think that this is harsh or unjust. Safety and security is on everyone's mind. Why should anyone assume that because they are a US Citizen they would never plan an attack on their own soil. That is foolish. There have been many instances where I was stopped or checked for one reason or another. I am an American Citizen with nothing to hide. Why should someone feel that they should not be profiled.