Washington, Nov 24(ANI): Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum has backed racial profiling of Muslims at airports during the November 22 CNN debate on national security in Washington.
He said the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) should be allowed to target "the folks who are most likely to be committing these crimes."Obviously, Muslims would be someone you'd look at, absolutely," the New York Daily News quoted him, as saying.
"The radical Muslims are the people committing these crimes, by and large, as well as younger males... Not exclusively but these are things you profile to find the most likely candidate," he added.
His statement came after several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, described racial profiling as an unconstitutional and ineffective measure.
Republican 2012 White House contender Herman Cain supported Santorum's views and said though he favoured "targeted identification," profiling one specific group was "oversimplifying it."
"If you take a look at the people who are trying to kill us, it would be easy to figure out exactly what that identification profile looks like... The terrorists have one objective that some people don't seem to get. They want to kill all of us, so we should use every means necessary to kill them first," Cain added.
Cain's earlier statement that he would was not "comfortable" appointing Muslims to his Cabinet if he was elected US President, had sparked an outcry, compelling him to clarify that he was referring to extremists.
Liberal presidential contender Ron Paul refuted Santorum's views.
"What if they look like Timothy McVeigh?", Paul said, referring to the white, American Army veterinarian, who executed the 1995 bomb attack in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and injured over 800.(ANI)
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