[knighthawk]

Ping

[fatnotlazy]

"Americans who cherish their civil liberties are reluctant to allow the type of psychological profiling used by the Israelis to be employed at U.S. airports; they are nervous about the balance between personal freedom and public safety."

***

The ones who won't agree to profiling are the ACLU, the ultra liberal socialist Democrats and other enemies of this country. I think for most rational Americans, the choice is clear. Our safety is far more important than these so-called infringements on freedom.

[CertainInalienableRights]

But it didn't always work well. In one case, the national coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's Campaign Against Racial Profiling was pulled aside.

Sounds to me like their program was working just fine.

[ml/nj]

Americans who cherish their civil liberties are reluctant to allow the type of psychological profiling used by the Israelis to be employed at U.S. airports;

Twaddle.

I cherish my civil liberties, and think they include the right to bring my toothpaste along with me when I am traveling to or from an airport convenient to my home where I have lived for over 20 years. Answering reasonable questions is much less of an imposition on those liberties.

ML/NJ

[The Electrician]

In one case, the national coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's Campaign Against Racial Profiling was pulled aside.

It would not surprise me if a liberal extremist were acting strangely or irrationally in an airport (or anywhere else, for that matter)... For that matter, it would not surprise me if such a person were intentionally acting strangely in order to provoke such a reaction.

[NC28203]

>>> they are nervous about the balance between personal freedom and public safety.

I'm guessing they are more concerned about their time than they are about their civil liberties if we are talking about the average American.
How long a conversation is required for Israeli security agents to understand who is standing in front of them and what would this mean for average wait lines at airports?
Will Americans be willing to arrive more than two hours before departure for their domestic flights or at that point will they find alternatives?
How many flights does El Al have and how many people do they have to train to meet that demand? I would guess that their volume is considerably less than that of most US airlines since most El Al flights are international. I find people are prepared to expect more review when flying internationally than they are domestically.

[SZonian]

I saw a short soundbite on the news the other night from an Israeli security professional who said the U.S. and other western nations focus too much on finding weapons/bombs instead of the slime who are going to use the weapons/bombs.

There can be careful profiling using psychological techniques and still not get the PC crowd's panties twisted into a knot.

Cheers,
SZ

[SJackson]

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[marblehead17]

ping

[js1138]

I would start by asking passengers to eat a ham sandwich.

[white trash redneck]

The problem with the El Al model, is that, at least as of March 2002, they had only 30 aircraft and and 90 flights per day. I think that close to that many flights take off from O'Hare alone in an hour. With that few flights, and thus passengers, to screen, they can use more intensive screening techniques, like interviewing each passenger that wouldn't be practical here. With the roughly 25,000 flights (not passengers!) per day taking off in the US, we are going to have to use much cruder screens. I suspect that some combination of profiling for muslim/middle eastern appearing passengers, combined with random checks (recall that that palesimians did use Japanese Red Army and Baader-Meihof thugs) will work best, though nobody from TSA has asked my opinion yet.