This Associated Press article suggests that the Justice Department is considering letting the Federal Bureau of Investigation use profiling to select individuals for further study vis-a-vis terrorism activities. Profiling makes a heck of a lot of sense, and our unwillingness to use it only hands a weapon to our enemies.
Every time I see an elderly woman being harassed by the Transportation Security Administration people at an airport I think "how stupid is this?" Who wishes us ill at the moment? Mostly youngish men of Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian extraction, in other words, radical Islamists. How likely is that white haired grandmother to be a terrorist? Vanishingly unlikely. But our taxpayer-funded civil servants hassle her in the name of treating everybody equally - ridiculous.
Does that mean we should punish people for being ethnically one thing or another? Of course not. However, it is entirely reasonable to pay additional attention to the activities of those who resemble the terrorist profile. Expect the civil liberties obsessives to go crazy at the very thought of this sensible step.
