’ve been to the United States five times in my life: three times by air and twice by car. Four of the five times that I have tried to gain entry, I have been stopped by U.S. Customs. The one time I wasn’t stopped, I was crossing the border from Alberta into Washington State. Two factors were working to my advantage then. For starters, the trip was two years before 9/11, and second, I was travelling in a van with six of my whitest friends.

U.S. Customs has every right to detain and question anyone who tries to enter the U.S. I am not a U.S. citizen and I don’t have any right to enter the U.S. There isn’t much I can complain about. The U.S. is an awesome place to visit and Customs officers are courteous. Whatever inconvenience I experienced at the border was far surpassed by the enjoyment I experienced once inside (except for the time border officials ransacked my cousin’s car - but that says more about Buffalo than anything else).

But sitting in Customs waiting rooms has given me plenty of time to think. Why would the U.S. want to make it hard for me to cross the border? I’m exactly the kind of visitor they want. Whenever I am in the States, I eat too much, drive too much, and spend too much - just like any good American. 

Besides which, I am Canadian born with no criminal record. I’ve also tried everything to make it easier. I shaved. I smiled. I wore a tie. Each time I ended up in a little waiting room. The only thing I haven’t tried changing is my name.

What’s in a name? Friends find it quite hilarious that Googling “Ali Ahmad” brings up a hit from the FBI’s most wanted terrorist list - funny, until they have to travel with me. Everyone on that FBI list is a man with a Muslim name and it is predominately Muslim men that are being stopped at Customs. Maybe border officers also use Google?

Like my Google search, media coverage of Muslim terrorists makes it easy to make an incorrect inference: all Muslims are terrorists. With over a billion Muslims in the world, it’s equally easy, for rational people, to dismiss that claim. Of course, there is another conclusion that is much harder to ignore: all terrorists are Muslim.

The few exceptions, such as Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber, are infamous because they defy conventional expectations.  There are certain facts that a sensationalist media or the semantics of freedom fighting can’t distort. We’re not talking about attacks in occupied territories or declared war zones. We’re talking about bad men who fly jumbo jets into New York office towers, wear shoe bombs on English airplanes, and drive cars into Scottish airports. They identify themselves as Muslims and they are terrorists.

So what’s the problem with racial profiling? If you’re a foreigner trying to enter the United States, then not very much. The U.S. is on the lookout for terrorists trying to enter their country. One clue about them is that they tend to be Muslim men. Extra screening for Muslim men is more effective and efficient than randomly screening passengers or raising the screening level for everyone. It’s tough on Muslim men with connecting flights out of the U.S., but it is a reality of the world we now live in.

The same analysis cannot be used to support racially profiling citizens within their own country. In Canada and the U.S., citizens are protected from unreasonable search and seizure. The authorities must have “probable cause” before they can search you. Just being Muslim and wanting to move around the country (another constitutional right) is not probable cause permitting a search.

Racial profiling may be efficient, but it is a dangerous practice in a free and democratic society. Democracies function based on protecting individual liberties. Specifically targeting individuals by their race is a violation of those basic rights.  When individual rights are not protected, the threads forming the fabric of democracy begin to unravel.

However, the government is permitted to limit individual rights if the purpose is sufficiently important. In expropriation cases, for example, the government is allowed to seize private land to build roads or for other construction deemed to be in the public interest. Although affected landowners cannot prevent expropriation, the government must recognize their property rights by paying fair compensation.

Public transportation systems are a frequent target of terrorist attacks. Given what we know about terrorists and the difficulty of protecting these systems, anti-terrorism legislation permitting racial profiling may be a necessary evil. But if individuals of certain ethnic groups are forced to accept diminished rights in the interest of public safety, shouldn’t they also be compensated for it?

It’s much harder to put a price on a person’s freedom than it is to appraise a piece of land. Freedom is supposed to be priceless. If the government decides to limit a person’s rights without compensation, the effective “price” of those rights becomes zero. 

Compensation does not legitimize the harm caused by racial profiling, but rather recognizes that a right has been violated. A nominal fee around $50 would likely be sufficient to acknowledge the time and embarrassment of unwarranted searches at airports or bus stations. In fact, we might even see some Muslims volunteering to be searched…

If putting a dollar amount on freedom is too hard to digest, airport authorities could find more creative solutions. Individuals stopped at airport inspections could receive front-of-the-line passes for future security checks or similar airport perks. 

As a matter of goodwill, foreign airports could easily extend this courtesy to all travellers regardless of citizenship. I, for one, would love it if the United States adopted this program. I know I’m going to end up in the little room, but I hate waiting in a long line to get there.