Racial Profiling

I keep hearing rumblings by various Republican groups about racial profiling airline passengers. Why would they be so eager to support such a massive bureaucratic and stupid idea?

For a party who prides itself efficient markets and disdain for government bureaucracy, I fail to see how adding yet ANOTHER layer of stupid airport procedures is going to help security.

Like most things, good execution is the key, not the addition of numerous, duplicate layers of less-and-less perfect security.

Theoretically, how was the Christmas Bomber Supposed to Be Stopped:

1. Name on the terrorist database/no fly list

I thought it was clear after 9/11, we make one list. There is no point in having multiple lists, especially if there are not being checked. I suppose, there could be an argument made for 2 lists - a) the absolute, you are not allowed on a plane list no matter what and b) the double-triple check list where you get patted down or totally fully inspected including up your butt-hole before being allowed on the plane.

To me, we err on the side of caution here and use the "no fly" list rather liberally. And in the case of a father calling out and warning about his son's fundamentalists beliefs, he goes on the no-fly list. If it is important to him, he'll do the necessary procedures to remove himself. If he can't "prove" his innocence, well, sorry buddy, don't sign up with Islamic Terrorist groups and expect to be able to fly. Is this potentially unfair to some radical muslims who do not intend to blow up planes? Yes, it is unfair to them. I'm not losing sleep over it.

2. Caught At The Airport Security Procedures

*say the bomber gets through the database check by a mistake or a bomber is not on the list (undoubtedly a future possibility)

How could airline security stopped the Christmas bomber? From my understanding, they would need to do a heavy pat down search, or a strip search, or some type of chemical scan that could detect the explosives he was using. I take it the technology is too expensive or nonexistent that could detect all potential explosives in a scan. Therefore, a pat down or strip search (both tedious and invasive) would be required to catch a potential bomber.

Those advocates of racial profiling, therefore, suggest we need to strip search or pat down search every young Muslim man. And obviously, if we are to do this procedure, since Muslim is not something branded on one's chest, we would need to apply the procedure to every POTENTIAL young Muslim man and probably expand it to women and maybe even to some older men. You see how this quickly gets impossible. Further, it we apply the procedure to too many people it will inevitably become watered down and bad. We might as well just stop flying in airplanes in the name of safety.

The other option is not exactly racial profiling, but country profiling and strip searching or patting down everyone who passes through a "terrorist" country like Yemen, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, etc, etc. the list goes on and on. This is what Bill O'Reilly suggested last night. I thought the Christmas bomber originated from the Netherlands, so I don't see how this procedure would have stopped him. Further, there is such an easy work around if a potential bomber could fly to a neutral country without a bomb and then assemble the bomb in the neutral country (note, getting the terrorist no fly database would help on multiple levels here, by potentially capturing him and/or his handlers in trying to get to a neutral country) Then again, flying isn't the only way to get into a neutral country. Nevertheless, such procedures might make it harder for potential bombers to succeed.

Lastly, there is behavioral profiling - strip searching or patting down people who do things like buy one-way tickets in cash and act all shady and weird and have creepy eyes and give us the heebie jeebies. As arbitrary as this sounds, I actually think it is the best of all the above options. If someone exhibits weird behavior, they go through "enhanced" security, ie butt-hole level search and actually talking to a security official. That's what El Al does. (*also note, behavioral profiling should extend waaaaay beyond just airport ticket purchases, which is only the very last level of shady behavior. In the new Superfreakonomics, they talk about counterterrorism folks trolling through bank data for suspicious activity - putting in large amounts of cash into an account and then withdrawing small amounts incrementally, for instance. We need to be using all sorts of smart procedures like this to identify potential suspects and then have smart teams of people who dig deeper into such shady data and I'm sure you will quickly find out whether it is a real "hit" or not. So, if you notice the large cash and small withdrawals are made by a woman whose social security number says she grew up in Des Moines and has four children, we can safely assume she's getting money from her rich relatives or a suger daddy. Or, if it is a young man who recently is visiting us from Yemen on a student visa, yeah, we should dig deeper and not let the fella on a plane without a butt-hole search).

As for our current procedures -

The metal detector scanners and no fly liquids and shoe removal, as far as I can tell, has robbed the public of a lot of perfectly good contact lens solution, lotions, and swiss army knives and at the same time, never, not even once, stopped a terrorist.

But lastly, we need to face a sad fact - we will not be able to stop terrorists from attacking via technology or search procedures alone. If there are continued safe havens for terrorists, they will get advanced weaponry and well trained enough individuals to crack our system. One day, they will figure out how to incubate someone with small pox or some awful disease - how could you ever stop such a person from getting on a plane and entering the country? A really smart terrorist could simply arrive at the departures gate at the airport and infect an innocent person unknowingly and they could "safely" enter a specific country. The only real long term solution is attacking at (i'm coining a new term here) Status Centers. So long as being a "terrorist" provides some sort of Status upon disaffected individuals, we are going to be addressing this problem. This is why state sponsors and terrorist organizations are problematic. They provide the terrorist infrastructure. It's just like the movie business - it works because there is a studio structure - where money can be found, experience technicians, theaters, etc. Young filmmakers need all of this infrastructure to imagine new movies. Imagine if we got rid of movie theaters and new tv sets, etc, no one would make movies because no one would know how to watch them. Same idea with terrorism, if the infrastructure for it disappears, disaffected young men who long to murder or find acceptance or self-sacrifice in the name of religion won't have an outlet.

Which is why we invaded Iraq.