On The Third Hand

30 December, 2001: "More profiling"

Charles Johnson blogged an article from the LA Times, "Terrorists Are Difficult to Profile". He notes that the article mentions that the El Al (the Israeli airline) did catch Richard Reid and, after searching him thoroughly, sat him next to an Air Marshal. He uses this to suggest that the title of the article should be changed to "Some Terrorists Are Incredibly Easy to Profile". Yes, they are if you use El Al's methods, which include interrogating each and every passenger and pulling aside anyone in the least bit suspicious for further checks. Charles, like Ann, seems to be missing the point. The people in the US are (mostly) not arguing for El Al type checking. They are arguing for racial/ethnic profiling.

Ethnic profiling would not have caught Richard Reid. He isn't Arab. Country profiling would not have caught him either. He's British. If we start relying on ethnic profiling, we are someday going to have a blond-haired, blue-eyed, clean-cut, clean-shaven Muslim extremist with a US passport waltz right on to a plane and try to blow it up or crash it into something. We cannot count on profiling, and I doubt our new 'federalized' people (who don't need even a high school education)are capable of doing the kind of security checks that El Al uses. So, once again, it's up to the passengers and crew to stay alert.

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