Profiling Arabic Looking Passengers on Air Flights

I believe this will become a regular practice.

We had a thread on Americans profiling before, and many posters thought it was morally wrong. In light of recent events does anyone approve of it now?

I think the present suspect is more African looking than Arabic looking.

My feeling is to forget the profiling and treat everyone as suspects.

The suspect isn't middle eastern.
I think profiling is incredibly wrong.

The conjecture here is that this Nigerian suspect chose Detroit as his destination becuase he would not attract so much attention flying into a majority black city.

At least we didn't declare war on Nigeria and send an invading army.

My feeling is to forget the profiling and treat everyone as suspects.

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I think it is turning in that direction. I always get searched at airports because I am a nervous flier and I look all jittery and suspicious while I am waiting to board.

Our response to these incidents actually has an element of humor in them, if you look at it that way. Some idiot tries to set his shoes on fire, so now everybody has to take off their shoes at the check points. Then some fool goes to the lavatory an hour before he tries to blow up his underpants, so now we can't go to the bathroom or have a blanket in the last hour of a flight. :/

^ Hhhhmmmm, wait . . . if the outcome of the shoe bomber was that we now have to take off our shoes as we pass through security, will we now have to take off our pants??? You know, just to be sure?

If you don't believe profiling works - look at Israeli airline El Al.

I also have to say that we all use profiling every day - it's call street smarts (that's not my idea, the credit here goes to Dorispulaski). Back many years ago, I used to work at a maternity clothing store at an upscale mall. One day, a guy walked in who set all of my alarm bells ringing like crazy. However, I told myself that I shouldn't call security since I was just profiling the guy for being a male Hispanic. Well, as it turns out I most certainly should have trusted my senses as the guy pulled out his gun and demanded I hand over the money in the register to him. My takeaway from it? Profiling may be morally abhorrent, but sometimes it is just the best defense there is.

Though "smart" profiling wouldn't grill every "Arabic-looking" passenger. Just as I was alerted not only by the fact that the guy was Hispanic but by many other factors as well, so should airline security look at a whole slew of things, not just whether the guy looks Arabic.

just wondering said:

^ Hhhhmmmm, wait . . . if the outcome of the shoe bomber was that we now have to take off our shoes as we pass through security, will we now have to take off our pants??? You know, just to be sure?

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Would one of those full body scanners have caught the underwear bomb? It seems that's the direction the industry's headed in.

There will be profiling of ALL Muslims.

For an unexplicable reason, I can't copy the NY Times Alert link

We have allowed the terrorists a great victory. They have successfully interrupted normal life in America and made the country a little less pleasant to live in.