IT'S EASY TO BULLY THE VOICELESS

I wish to respond to two letters concerning support of governmental racial
profiling (The targeting of certain suspects makes sense and If the profile
fits, Jan. 5). I want to determine if the letter writers are sincere in
their posture.

Most white-collar crimes are committed by affluent, professional, white
males. They often commit their crimes in their corporate environments.
Knowing this, should we support random sieges (by federal agents) into the
corporate world, seizure of computers, documents, etc., in order to find
potential perpetrators of corporate crimes?

Every so often we have cases of random violence that seem to follow a
pattern. A loner, disgruntled by some perceived or real injustice, arms
himself with semiautomatic weapons and handguns and goes to an office
building, a high school cafeteria or a McDonald's and opens fire on
innocent people. More often than not they are white males. Do we create a
racial profile and begin confiscating guns from homes?

Of late, we have had a share of unethical and criminal activity engaged in
by judges, mostly male and white. Do we create a profile for these
individuals and arrest them arbitrarily while we search for possible
indiscretions and/or criminal activities?

Miami has had a rash of cases of corrupt police officers dealing in illegal
activities tied to drug trafficking. Will there be a profile created to
intercept future cases of corruption in the force? How about the abuses of
taxpayers' contributions by the Pentagon as it supports illegally inflated
contracts by contractors? Where's that profile?

The point I'm trying to make here is that the letter writers find it easy
and convenient to bully those individuals in society who are voiceless, who
have no political clout, people who can be trampled upon indiscriminately.
I wonder if they would afford the same level of tolerance to the
governmental infringement into the lives of the powerful, the rich or white
males in general. Would they support this infringement based on a
predetermined profile? If they do, I applaud them. If they don't, I simply
have to conclude that their posture is corrupt and hypocritical.

Fernando Ojeda, Dunedin