Preventing Terrorism in the Long Term: The Disutility of Racial Profiling in Preventing Crime and the Counterproductive Nature of Ethnic and Religious Profiling in Counterterrorism Policing
Abstract : After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the desire of Americans to feel secure made ethnic and religious profiling a tempting security trade-off. Generalizations about Arabs and Muslims as terrorists seemed to lead to an increasing practice of singling out individuals who look Arab or appear to be Muslim in entry-exit systems and in counterterrorist investigations. Civil liberties and Muslim advocacy groups immediately cried foul as accusations of profiling began to surface in the media and various government reports. Today, the main emphasis of the debate continues to focus on civil liberties. The aim of this thesis is to take a fresh perspective on profiling in counterterrorist-operations and demonstrate that profiling is actually counterproductive to an effective long-term counterterrorism strategy. This thesis first highlights major findings on the usefulness of racial profiling in criminal policing. It then examines issues of ethnic identity and the grand strategy of Islamic terrorist organizations and illustrates the counterproductive nature of ethnic and religious profiling. It will also demonstrate that while complaints of ethnic profiling persist within the Muslim community, the technique does not appear to have played a role in the disruption of actual terrorist plots in the United States.
Social movements and violence : participation in underground organizations
Part 1 Theories and methodologies: introduction - on individual motivations in underground political organizations, Donatella della Porta decisions to use terrorism - psychological constraints on instrumental reasoning, Martha Crenshaw. Part 2 Case studies: from protest to terrorism - the case of the SDS and the weathermen, Richard G. Braungart political violence by the non-aggrieved - explaining the political participation of those with no apparent grievances, Robert W. White going underground in Argentina - a look at the founders of a guerrilla movement, Maria Jose Moyano. Part 3 Women's studies: conservative and feminist images of women associated with armed, clandestine organizations in the United States, Gilda Zwerman lacerations in the memory - women in the Italian underground organizations, Luisa Passerini. Part 4 Comparative studies: left-wing and right-wing terrorist groups - a comparison for the German case, Friedhelm Neidhardt ethnic and sociorevolutionary terrorism - a comparison of structures, Peter Waldmann political socialization in left-wing underground organizations - biographies of Italian and German militants, Donatella della Porta.
The Impact of EU Unfair Contract Terms Law on U.S. Business-to-Consumer Internet Merchants
When the Court of Appeals for Versailles issued its decision in AOL France v. UFC Que Choisir2 in September 2005, it sent the message to U.S. Internet businesses that even contractual boilerplate localized for European markets may be invalid in European consumer transactions. In that case, a French consumer advocacy group challenged the terms AOL offered its French customers after AOL had made extensive revisions to its standard form contracts to respond to the concerns regarding those terms expressed in an advisory opinion by a French consumer protection agency. In 2004, a trial court invalidated nearly every term in the revised agreement; the appeals court affirmed on all counts. Subsequently, in July 2006 following concerns raised by the Office of Fair Trading (“OFT”), a United Kingdom government agency charged with “making sure markets work well for consumers,”3 Dell Corporation Limited changed its online terms and conditions to make them fairer to consumers.4 European consumer contract law had an impact in both cases. At issue for AOL France and Dell Corporation Limited was the application of France’s and the UK’s consumer contract law which is based on the Unfair Contract Terms Directive of 19945 and calls into question the validity of many of the terms that U.S. courts routinely enforce in transactions involving American consumers and merchants.