Comment & Debate
Brigitte Gabriel, founder and president of ACT! for America, said in December of 2009 that profiling would have picked-up on would-be Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: “He paid for his ticket in cash. He did not have any luggage. He has a one-way ticket to the United States. And he is coming to a religious ceremony. It doesn’t take more than two brain cells for anybody who is trained in this area to identify this guy as a bomber.”[1]
Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, the lobbying and trade group for the travel industry, “When it comes to profiling, I think there are things that should have been done but that common sense has gotten in the way of.” Dow said that Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, who attempted to blow up a Northwest plane on Christmas in 2009, bought a one-way ticket, paid cash and had no checked baggage. “If that doesn’t scream ‘take another look’ then I don’t know what does,” Dow said. “We should be profiling by the common-sense things that the experts know work, whether it’s behavioral, or practices.”[2]