Israel Matzav

Israel's Supreme Court issues show cause order on profiling

And you thought we finished with this nonsense four years ago. The Israeli Supreme Court has issued a show cause order to the government, asking it to explain why it cannot conduct airport security without assuming that 'Israeli Arabs' are a security risk. (Duh - because they are one?).

Following a hearing on a discrimination suit last week, the Supreme Court issued a show-cause order demanding that the Airport Authority explain why it cannot run security checks based on equal, uniform and practical criteria, instead of the current situation, in which Israeli Arab citizens are automaticly labelled a security risk.

Ahead of the Airport Authority's formal response, a security figure told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew service Monday morning that he was "sorry to hear that Supreme Court judges sit in their air-conditioned rooms and do not understand the dangers posed by the debate." Referring to the September 11, 2001 attacks by Arab extremists on the United States, the source continued, "The Twin Towers tragedy took place, the danger has not disappeared and peace has not come. The court is endangering the security of the citizens of Israel."

JPost adds:

The petition, which was submitted in May 2007 by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) against the Israel Airports Authority, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Transportation Ministry, says that Arab Israelis receive more thorough security inspections than Jewish ones before they board a flight at Israeli airports and when flying to Israel on Israeli airlines.

The petition said that this was the result of racial profiling practiced by the security authorities that designates Arabs as more dangerous, even if there is no indication that the individual Arab passenger poses a risk.

ACRI stated that the longer and more thorough security checks that the Arab passengers undergo create and encourage stigmas and negative attitudes towards Arabs and humiliate the Arabs whenever they fly.

The petitioners claimed that the practice was a violation of the Basic Law:Human Dignity and Freedom and laws ensuring free movement, protection from discrimination and protection of privacy.

The petition outlined numerous examples of cases where Arabs were forced to undergo rigorous questioning and luggage inspections, as well as instances where Arabs were barred from boarding their flights. It also told of instances when Arabs where singled out of the group they were traveling with and forced to undergo additional inspections.

The petition stressed that racial profiling took place on a daily basis and that Arabs were constantly under suspicion for no other reason than that they were Arabs.

...

In its response to the petition, which the state submitted in 2008, it wrote that based on security requirements, which are determined by the Shin Bet, every passenger, without exception, undergoes some form of security inspection before boarding an aircraft.

“However, the level of inspection passengers undergo is derived from a variety of details and characteristics, according to their potential risk evaluation,” the state said.

This evaluation, according to the state, “is based upon experience and risk assessment, which considers various details and characteristics that experience indicates have probable correlation to involvement in terrorist activities.”

The state’s attorneys stressed that the precise nature of the regulations and the reasoning that supports them is highly classified and volunteered to inform the court of them behind closed doors.

The lawyers added that the Israel Airports Authority had taken steps to reduce the friction between the passengers and the security inspectors, including the installation of new technological methods of inspection that are less intrusive, and have written a code of ethics and trained their employees to be more sensitive and polite in their treatment of passengers.

They also promised that additional changes that would improve the situation would be introduced in the future, citing an investment of more than NIS 300 million.

Read the whole thing.

If the court makes the Airports Authority change its security procedures and God forbid there is a terror attack, the judges ought to be held personally liable. That would make them think twice about doing anything.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Israeli airport security, profiling

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:37 AM