Rhetorical Analysis - Blog 2

“A Cop’s View on “Drug Courier Profiling” (Whoops—I meant “Drug Courier Indicators” written by S. Leon Felkins is a short piece written for individuals in the criminal justice or law enforcement fields. The context is about ‘drug courier profiling’ versus ‘drug courier indicators’—wording. It is mainly a satire on the words profiling and indicators. This article is located at http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/felkins6.html I know very little about the topic issues, other than that the average, everyday citizens feels the pressure of being profiled by law enforcement thus affecting their Fourth Amendment, “Probable Cause.” http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/html/amdt4.html

Mr. Felkins is a retired Engineer, Army officer and former teacher of Computer Systems. He currently maintains a web page on Political Philosophy, “A Rational Life”, and another on the history of politics, “Political Almanac.” This article was written in May 2001.

As stated earlier, I believe the intended readers are those in the criminal justice/law enforcement fields. Perhaps maybe even the political field or even the average citizen (with no specific field in mind).

The call to write is due to the “’drug war’ and the constant attack and chipping away at the security and privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.” Mr. Felkins plays the average citizen against the law enforcement officer in this article. He uses the Fourth Amendment against the law enforcement officer and the drug courier indicators against the citizen. Mr. Felkins simply pits one against the other, thus creating animosity in the world of law enforcement and protecting the citizen. So he is not only reaching out to the law enforcement officer, but everyone else as well.

I think the purpose of the article is to showcase how easy it is for law enforcement to ‘target’ someone as a drug courier regardless of the protection of their Fourth Amendment right.

The writer’s tone in this article is mainly sarcastic. He starts off as protecting the rights of United States citizens and being knowledgeable in the area of rules for police and federal drug agents, but towards the end of the article, he is making jokes about how easy it is for everyone to be a drug indicator. There is even an extract from another article, “The Drug Courier Profile,” by Charles L. Becton. Mr. Felkins refers to this article as “a precise drug profile model which will allow the police to nab the druggies without in anyway stepping on the constitutional right of ordinary citizens.”

I believe that if Mr. Felkins had wanted to reach a certain field, he should have focused on that certain field instead of attempting to touch many fields. Although as an everyday citizen, I appreciated the humor in which it was presented. He did make me think about the next time I drive my 1995 black Corvette with dark tinted windows to the grocery store. I might get stopped for a routine traffic violation (scrupulous obedience to traffic laws—being overly cautious) because I’m too scared to do anything else in the car. While I’m being “looked at” for that violation, they may just want to look into the trunk and inspect the rest of the car—just because they can! Never mind that they’ll find tissue and a radar detector in there too. I hope they don’t notice the other “indicators” that might be rolling around in the back.