How to Catch a Terrorist Without Hurting Anyone's Feelings

An argument for computerized probable cause

By Charles A. Harold

March 01, 2006 — CSO —

Pass the Excedrin; I have another "War on Terrorism" headache. This one is about all the fuss over terrorist profiling. Politically correct pundits are crying foul, stating that a terrorist profile is nothing more than a racial or religious profile. Their basic argument: "All Middle Easterners are not terrorists and all Muslims are not Middle Easterners; therefore there is no such thing as a Middle Eastern/Muslim terrorist profile."

For mental health reasons I usually refrain from consuming any sort of political pabulum, but I have to be intellectually honest and admit that the pundits are correct on this one. Racial or religious profiling will not prevent the Richard Reid shoe bombers of the world or expose the next equivalent to Anakin Skywalker before he becomes a Sith Lord.

Unfortunately, as we argue over whatâ¬"s to be done about terrorism, trying not to hurt anyoneâ¬"s feelings in the process, the next 9/11 is being planned. To prevent terrorism, law enforcement needs a new type of politically correct profiling. I have just the thing, a solution that even the ACLU may find acceptable.

Shake hands with a simple, old-fashioned law enforcement solution to catch terrorists: the legal doctrine of probable cause. Probable cause exists when the facts within a police officerâ¬"s knowledge are sufficient to make the average, reasonable, prudent person believe that a suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. Think about that for a minute: A police officer can detain or arrest a person before they commit a crime. Now thereâ¬"s a tool that tool might come in handy in the war on terror.

To articulate the facts and circumstances necessary to make an arrest prior to a crime being committed, police need to connect the dots of evidence. By contrasting a suspectâ¬"s behavior against a background of objective information gleaned from a web of circumstances such as witnessesâ¬" interviews, physical evidence and contradictory statements, police are able to paint an objective picture of a suspectâ¬"s intentions. In the street-level world of probable cause, bad guys crash and burn at the intersections of logic and common sense when their concocted stories to police about why they have a gun, ski mask and bag of money in the back of their car do not pass the smell test.

Ay, thereâ¬"s the rub: The new bad guys of the worldâ¬terroristsâ¬are not exactly standing in front of the local quickie-mart with a ski mask and a gun, are they? Trying to find a terrorist can be like trying to find a needle in a worldwide haystack. Law enforcement doesnâ¬"t stand a chance of finding that needle if it is looking in the wrong haystack.

• Print