That thought crossed my mind, but I wanted to say something about the comments here first, rather than address the behavior described in the incident itself.
The world has certainly changed since September 11, and for the most part, not for the better. Some of the changes include more racial and ethnic profiling, loss of civil liberties, and a general loss of freedom (as well as an increase in inconvenience). Like huckster, I am willing to accept greater scrutiny and oversight of myself and my activities as the price we all must pay as long as we must live with the threat of terrorism.
However, I don't think that excuses inappropriate behavior, but it could explain why such incidents may be on the rise. There are challenges presented by the threat of terrorism that we have yet to resolve. One of them is defining what is reasonable behavior on the part of law enforcement; we may all have to live with a higher level of inconvenience - but I feel that the law enforcement community needs to figure out how to do their job while still treating people with respect, without trampling on the personal and property rights of individuals. Another challenge is how to treat all of our citizens equally, rather than denying rights to those who happen to share the ethnicity of the perpetrators of the recent attacks. These are challenges that will be difficult to overcome, but this is just as much a part of what we need to figure out as the identification and incarceration of the terrorists. While we are figuring out how to overcome these challenges, we cannot use terrorism as an excuse for actions that are unfair and unjust.
These are indeed difficult times, for all of us.
[This message has been edited by nsxtasy (edited 18 February 2002).]
