As I have previously stated on more than one occasion, I hate to travel. I particularly despise traveling by air, which I had to do recently if I wanted to visit my daughter and baby granddaughter. Air travel was obnoxious to me even prior to 9-11; since then it is utterly unbearable.
Post 9-11, the Aviation & Transportation Security Act required passenger screening be done by federal employees as now provided by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), part of the Department of Homeland Security. These federal employees, as is frequently the case with non-police security personnel everywhere, are often cop-wannabes who take to their newly won power with bureaucratic zeal. Going through a busy airport involves getting into a long line to pass through security, emptying one’s pockets, taking off one’s belt, taking off one’s shoes, standing in a screening machine with one’s arms raised, and often getting patted down for good measure. I find this to be a ludicrous and unnecessary personal imposition when effective security could otherwise be accomplished without having to force all passengers to submit to such indignities.
First of all, the vast majority of airline passengers are non-threatening. Some airlines are already recognizing this by identifying frequent flyers and tagging them for minimal security screening. Voluntarily provided information about passengers, in tandem with recognized non-threat criteria, ought to result in most flyers being fast-tracked through simple security screening without the need of clothing removal and pat downs.
Secondly, many airports have started utilizing programs that place trained behavioral observers to accomplish passenger profiling based upon an analysis of a person’s appearance, behavior, itinerary, & passport. Airport security experts have found this to be effective. If a red flag goes up upon simple observation, they can then approach the passenger and question him. They look for specific signs, such as unusual behavior, nervousness, eye contact avoidance, or sweating.
It is just this sort of behavioral profiling that resulted in security personnel pulling out a man named King Downing for questioning while he was passing through Boston’s Logan International Airport. Downing, a black man with a short beard, happened to be the ACLU nat’l coordinator of their Campaign Against Airport Racial Profiling. Apparently, security observers noticed something about him, other than his skin color, that triggered further inquiry. Naturally, he’s now filed suit against them in federal court.
Legally, profiling is a dirty word, particularly racially-based profiling. Many argue against it. From a constitutional perspective, it can be iffy at best. Yet it is hard to argue against the mathematical probability that Arab-looking passengers are considerably more likely than non-Arab-appearing passengers to present a risk of a mass murder suicide bombing or hijacking. If profiling pursuant to race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, or color is presumptively inappropriate, that presumption is certainly overcome these days in the case of airline passengers based on the government having a compelling interest in preventing terrorist mayhem and murder. Having one’s ethnic feelings hurt is a small price to pay for flying safely, just as putting every single flyer through enhanced security screening is overdoing it. Just because that imbecile Richard Reid got on a plane with a bomb in his shoe, now everyone is forced to take their shoes off before boarding a plane?!