One of the rare times that I find myself agreeing with content from Fox.

It is not so much that I support profiling as I deride the randomized process currently in place. It is foolish, a waste of time, and resources and a sad gesture to detain, question, and search an 80 year old grandmother. Sadly, there are those who are more likely than others to be agents of mayhem and destruction. Those folks need to be scrutinized with care.

In other words a subject selection process that uses profiles to identify those most likely to need watching.

Having said this we are going to have to accept that screening procedures will need to improve including the use of the very intrusive but very effective explosive sniffers and deep scanners (that make on a virtual nude on screen); that luggage will need to be inspected with greater care; that carry-ons will be even further limited and that behavior on planes will be subject to more scrutiny and oversight.

Here’s a media question — Fox and common sense says that Bill O’Reilly is an opinion host. If Bill is on vacation, is it his show that’s asking about profiling or was it his guest host?

“As for what many are calling racial profiling in the aftermath of September 11th, well, get ready to be pissed off, you ACLU-Fucking-Morons, we’re dealing with a massive threat and limited manpower, so, you want them to check everybody out equally? Sure, fine okay, but let’s at least compromise and put the Swedish dwarf a little further down the list than the Iraqi explosives expert carrying a Belgian passport with more eraser marks on it than Kid Rock’s trig final.”
-Dennis Miller

I think LOGICAL profiling needs to be done. The old woman, most likely isn’t going to blow up the plane (not saying she should skate through security… but we don’t need to waste time with her either). We cannot keep spending gobs of money, wasting time and effort, and failing to find things because we’re too distracted looking at people we know are less likely to commit such an act.

Yeah, checking out everyone might make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside… “Look how accepting we are!” But apparently it’s not helping us keep the airlines any safer.

We don’t need to profile simply on race… we don’t need to profile on religion. We need to profile a certain group of people… people traveling with one-way tickets, people with no baggage, men of a certain age group, people coming from overseas, etc. etc. Targeted profiling, based on the likelihood of that particular group.

But a better question… for the folks who think that the question of profiling is wrong and offensive… what do you propose we do? Or are you simply the people of, “No.” How do we make the airlines safer?

And Shiela Jackson Lee (D, Texas) is calling for a new ‘Behavioral’ Surveillance System… but she says that is NOT profiling.

Instead of strip searching every brown person, how about just making sure the troublemakers are properly flagged? We know where the system failed with the crotchbomber, and has nothing to do with race.