http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/12/...section=opinion

Ethnic profiling worth second look

By Jens Laurson
and George Pieler

Published: Sunday, December 10, 2006

Holiday traffic exposed lots of glitches in air travel security, as infrequent fliers confronted the ever-changing rules for carry-on baggage. Despite the United States-European Union agreement on provisional rules for passenger- data exchange, air travel security procedures have been up in the air since the August terror plot aimed at the United States and Britain.

Beverages and gels are out, except for 3-ounce travel sizes. Europe's belated decision to allow musicians to travel with their instruments cost renowned Jazz Messengers trumpeter Valery Ponomarev a broken arm in a tussle with Air India employees in Paris. Most recently, a group of imams were tossed from a US Airways flight due to passenger alarm at their loud praying, praising of Allah and unexplained seat changing.

These are excellent reasons to step back and consider the obvious: We should look closely at the passengers boarding each flight. That, alas, leads us into the politically incorrect territory of ''ethnic profiling.''

We shy away from any form of ''discrimination,'' yet to discriminate is value neutral: We do it every day in our choices of food, friends, jobs. Government discriminates in deciding what laws and regulations to implement. Security agencies discriminate, focusing their efforts where the yield is greatest.

When resources are limited, anything less than prudent discrimination brings waste, demoralization, decreased effectiveness and less security. If, even when lives are at stake, we find flying too burdensome without mascara, water bottles, too-big-books and instruments, the answer is common-sense discrimina- tion.

We might wish to treat everyone the same, but the hard truth is we don't (privately or publicly) and shouldn't. For greater flying security, we know to look for Muslim, South Asian/Middle Eastern men. The July 2005 London bombings taught us that the passport matters less than ethnicity - which is just as well, because while passports can be forged, skin color and ethnic features cannot.

It is time we stop pretending that making Al Gore take his shoes off (as happened after Sept. 11) is normal - or that Gore should have to pretend to happily embrace that ''egalitarian spirit.'' The true message of today's airport security measures is that ''We are all terrorists now!''

Is it unfair to make men fitting the suicide-terrorist profile ''suffer'' through extra-strict security measures? Inconveniencing an entire ethnic class for the wrongdoing of a small minority would seem to offend Western values.

The truth is, everyone suffers twice when passengers, no matter how low their risk profile, are searched, and everyone is delayed because everyone else is checked.

If we simply searched, rigorously, those who constitute even a remote risk based on the history of terror attacks (with apologies, discounts or whatever else might soften the blow of being singled out), even those customers would save time, not having to wait for everyone else to be frisked. Those US Airways imams would have been checked out early and either given a pass or been detained with much less fuss.

No one welcomes the implicit accusation of wrongdoing, especially when people to one's left and right do not suffer that indignity. Yet grievances of those designated for greater scrutiny must be weighed against the universal grievance of all travelers. No reasonable passenger today should fail to understand why he has been selected for a more thorough security check. The person so selected might not like it, but the fact is, such checking makes him more secure, too.

Insurance companies use profiling; so does Israel. The history of Western governments profiling for bad motives is disgraceful and explains our trepidation. But we must differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable uses of profiling when civilization and lives are under attack.

Surely we would be outraged if, to prevent drunken-driving deaths, we required every citizen to attend classes against drunk driving. Yet it is imaginable that we might require all those who consume alcohol and have a driver's license to attend.

Troubled times call for troubling measures: Let us choose those that inflict the least pain and inconvenience the fewest people.

When I first heard that back in 2002, I was ripping mad, still am. How dare these oppresive thugs humilate the REAL PRESIDENT like that. :mad:

Well, the truth is, I've heard plenty of Congressmen and such complain about the same thing. It's not just Gore.

The deeper issue is: How do we decide who to screen and who not to screen? I'm no fan of political correctness, so it really doesn't bother me that they would want to screen those who look like they're of Arab descent. And if I were a white person in an Arab country and the same thing had happened in reverse, I wouldn't blame them a bit for screening me over an Arab. It's just reality that the most likely person who's going to be the next shoe bomber or whatever isn't going to be Al Gore or the little old white-haired grandmother in seat 32F.

I can actually say I've not heard about the Congresmen who complained, but they were probably not as recognizable as PRESIDENT AL GORE. I still stand by what I said, I think it's a total disgrace to harass and humiliate the REAL PRESIDENT in this way. Sure he may have accepted it but it was belittling and wrong. How would you like to bet the lying thief probably was behind it or at the very least had a good laugh??? :angry:

Well, to me, it doesn't matter if Gore is the LPOTUS or not, he's a former vice president, a well-known and honorable person, and it's ridiculous that he should have to be screened like that. But it's ridiculous that any of us should be screened. But how do they decide who to screen and who not to screen?

Exactly, EM, and AL GORE is not only "well-known and honorable," like I said, he is definitely one of the most recognizable humans in the entire world.

These incidents were totally wrong and unforgivable. And to think it happened twice.........something's not right here. :angry:

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page...T20020614e.html

Air Traveler Al Gore Selected for Random Search --Twice

By Christine Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
June 14, 2002

(CNSNews.com) - The policy of random airport security checks, implemented following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has resulted in lengthy, intrusive searches of travelers unlikely to be terrorists, including grandmothers and now Al Gore.

The former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate was randomly selected twice for searches last week, at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va. and at Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport.

Midwest Express Airlines, responsible for screening passengers, was reportedly Gore's airline of choice

"You're looking out and seeing Al Gore's unmentionables in his big, carry-on suitcase," Mark Graul of Green Bay told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "You could tell he was thinking, 'This is not happening to me.'

"He did not have a happy look on his face. Basically, the whole plane boarded before they got through looking through his stuff. He patiently went through it and then took a seat in the front row with, I assume, an aide," said Graul, chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.).

Another witness told the Sentinel that passengers jumped on their cell phones to relay the incident to friends and family.

A Gore spokesman told the Sentinel the former vice president was "more than happy" in these "troubled times" to submit to the searches.

The random search policies have riled critics who say it's a waste of time to search people who are extremely unlikely to be terrorists.

"The problem is that everybody is treated like a suspect and that's not the way to do it," Homer Boynton, a consultant who served on the National Academy of Sciences panel on Passenger Screening, told CNSNews.com in April. "You really have to do it on a profile basis, which is a bad word in this country."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has steadfastly opposed the use of racial profiling as a legitimate security measure. He told CBS' 60 Minutes that a 70-year-old Florida woman should receive the same level of airport scrutiny as a Jersey City, N.J. Islamic man.

In fact, official government policy dictates that airport screeners disregard physical characteristics of passengers like age, ethnicity, accents or facial features, in order to avoid discriminatory behavior.