Comment & Debate
Michael Reagan, son of President Ronald Reagan. “Profiling is answer for U.S. airport security.” Athens Banner-Herald. November 27, 2010: “Mr. President, Israel’s El Al Airlines inspectors routinely profile passengers and keep their hands to themselves, and they haven’t allowed a single terrorist to board their planes. You should follow suit and tell your TSA people to keep their fumbling hands to themselves.”
Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. “Profiling at airports works for Israel.” The Columbus Dispatch. November 24th, 2010: “No country has better airport security than Israel — and no country needs it more, since Israel is the most hated target of Islamic extremist terrorists. Yet, somehow, Israeli airport security people don’t have to strip passengers naked electronically or have strangers feeling their private parts.
Does anyone seriously believe that we have better airport security than Israel? Is our security record better than theirs?
‘Security’ may be the excuse being offered for the outrageous things being done to American air travelers, but the heavy-handed arrogance and contempt for ordinary people that is the hallmark of this administration in other areas is all too apparent in these new and invasive airport procedures.
[…] What do the Israeli airport security people do that American airport security do not do? They profile. They question some individuals for more than half an hour, open up all their luggage and spread the contents on the counter – and they let others go through with scarcely a word. And it works.
Meanwhile, this administration is so hung up on political correctness that they have turned ‘profiling’ into a bugaboo. They would rather have scanners look under the clothes of nuns than to detain a Jihadist imam for questioning.”