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.
Corpus Linguistics in Legal Discourse
There are many different ways in which modern Corpus Linguistics can be used to enrich and broaden our understanding of legal discourse. Based on the central principle of co-occurrence and co-selection in language construction, this paper reviews current applications of Corpus Linguistics in the area of legal discourse focusing on issues ranging from phraseology, variation in legal discourse, legal translation, register and genre perspectives on legal discourse, legal discourse in forensic contexts to evaluative language in judicial settings. It revisits the notion of ‘corpus’ and it highlights the relevance of various types of legal corpora and computer tools in legal linguistic research.