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"The point which seems to have escaped YOU is that El Al doesn't randomly choose pregnant white women but pre-profiles all its customers, first by danger level then by asking relevant questions, not by searching everyone."

That point did not escape me. I understand the concept quite well. In fact, I was subjected to a similar process when I flew out of a London airport some years ago, back when the IRA was more active. Asking all the questions was quite time consuming and annoying, if you ask me. If we tried to do that with every flight in America, it would cost a lot of money, slow things down, and many of the folks here would be quoting Ben Franklin and saying that the questions proved that we were going the way of the Nazis.

Patting down a certain random percentage of passengers makes it a little tougher for terrorists to pull of the sort of thing they did in Russia earlier this year. It is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but neither is it the end of life as we know it.

I would infinitely prefer to be asked a few questions than have my crotch prodded at or my wife felt up. That you think it would cost a lot of money and slow things down tells me you haven't met any of the now-underemployed psych majors who would inevitably be the trained screeners and you haven't been on a flight out of the country recently, or you would know there isn't much likelihood that things could get slower.

But of course, twenty years from now, when the checks aren't random for some, but standard for all, people like you will be talking about how it's okay to run random credit checks and do random colonoscopies on airline passengers, and how we should all be searched before we walk into large buildings. Crazy bastards like me, of course, will still be arguing that those who fit the profile of those who are likely to commit such crimes ought to be the ones who suffer the indignity of a search, instead of just granting government the wide power to randomly invade anyone and everyone's privacy. It is not the end of life as we know it. It is merely one of many steps in a long process of slowly curtailing the fundamental rights to be left alone and freely travel. And no, those aren't Constitutional rights, but then, neither is the right to marry or the right to breed.