Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Denying the Profiling

This most recent ruling by PolitiFact Florida concerns a remark by Tea Party (supported) incoming congress person Allen West, who as a candidate claimed he had a higher security clearance than the president, and from what I’ve heard is really into interrogation techniques as well. The statement being fact-checked was made by West on NBC's Meet the Press November 21: “after September 11, we had the opportunity with Israel coming and talking to us about improving our security screening procedures, and we turned them down.”

So PolitiFact proved we spoke with the Israelis about their security system, but could not pin down that we “turned them down” and ruled the statement Half True.

“Turning them down” implies that the Israeli’s made some sort of recommendation or request that required a yes or no—in order to “turn it down”. The fact is, however, that the U.S. was well aware of how Israel handled its airport security and weren’t required to turn them down—they could not use the major part of their system to begin with, because one factor made it too “objectionable” to Americans:

As part of its focus on this so-called "human factor," Israeli security officers interrogate travelers using racial profiling, singling out those who appear to be Arab based on name or physical appearance.[24] Additionally, all passengers, even those who do not appear to be of Arab descent, are questioned as to why they are traveling to Israel, followed by several general questions about the trip in order to search for inconsistencies.[20] Although numerous civil rights groups have demanded an end to the profiling, Israel maintains that it is both effective and unavoidable. As stated by Ariel Merari, an Israeli terrorism expert, "it would be foolish not to use profiling when everyone knows that most terrorists come from certain ethnic groups. They are likely to be Muslim and young, and the potential threat justifies inconveniencing a certain ethnic group."[25]

At a conference in May 2008, the United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Reuters interviewers that the United States will seek to adopt some of the Israeli security measures at domestic airports. He left his post in January 2009, a mere 6 months after this statement, which may or may not have been enough time to implement them.[28]

It could be that West was referring to Chertoff’s remarks above, but it does not mean that the United States “turned down” the Israelis either.

PolitiFact recognized the racial profiling angle, mostly beating around the bush, until this:

…The article raised concerns about "El Al-style ethnic profiling," noting that passengers are divided into low-risk (Israeli or foreign Jews), medium-risk (non-Jewish foreigners) and extremely high-risk travelers (anyone with an Arabic name). "Single women," it said, "also are considered high-risk, for fear they might be used by Palestinian lovers to carry bombs."

The racial profiling was clearly what West’s spokesperson Angela Sachitano was driving at, albeit with beating around the bush as well.  Compare her statement to the above:

The main focus of the Israeli solution is based on the idea that you need to identify the level of risk of each individual passenger and adjust the level of search to the level of risk," Ron said. "Over here there is no such process that identifies the level of risk of every single passenger at all -- the only thing that is done is checking names against the no fly list and watch list. .... The American model can be described as one size fits all while the Israeli solution can be described as a tailored security process based on identifying the level of risk of each passenger. That is a substantial difference."

To which I say, give me a break!!!!! Neither PolitiFact nor West’s people had the guts to say that U.S. Homeland Security could not/did not want to do racial profiling…..for a LOT of self-evident reasons (Can you say lawsuit? or large civil protest?) They might “turn down” the Israeli recommendations to be polite, if they were in fact made, but they would never have been considered in the first place.

Bottom line: Allen West wants to see racial profiling included in airport security measures, and he is trying to code word it and pass off its effectiveness by comparing it to what is used in Israel, and most important, taking a jab at the Obama administration’s Homeland Security with the “turn it down” excuse. That is the underlying argument that PF ignored in order to rule West Half True.

This does not merit a Half True. It’s a PC-tap dancing False. Unlike my counterpart PolitiFact critiquer, I do not offer grades, but in this case, PF does not *pass* the test for how it called this one.