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Profile Me If You Must

(Commentary) Michael J. Totten - I don't want to be profiled at the airport, but our airport security system is so half-baked and dysfunctional it may as well not even exist. So rather than doubling down on grandma and micromanaging everyone on the plane, we might want to pay as much attention to people as to their luggage, especially military-aged males who make unusual and suspicious-looking travel arrangements. That's what the Israelis do. At Ben-Gurion Airport you don't have to take off your shoes in the security line and you don't have to stand in front of invasive and expensive body-scanning machines. Israeli security agents interview everyone, and they subject travelers who fit certain profiles to additional scrutiny. They take me aside every time, partly because of my gender and age but mostly because a huge percentage of my passport stamps are from countries with serious terrorist problems. They've asked if I've ever met with anyone in Hizbullah. I am not going to lie, especially not when the answer can be easily found using Google. They know I've met with Hizbullah. That's why my luggage gets hand-searched one sock at a time while elderly tourists from Florida skate through. I don't take it personally, and it makes a lot more sense than letting me skate through while grandma's luggage is hand-searched instead. When I get on a plane in the U.S., I often breeze past women decades older than me while they're being frisked. Almost every single person in line knows it's ridiculous. We don't say anything because it feels vaguely "fair." Maybe it is, but it's no way to catch terrorists.
2010-01-07 08:57:03
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