Solution to airport security

Following on from John Stevens' excellent suggestion that all ethnic minorities should be profiled at airports, so that white people like him are not inconvenienced as they fly off to holiday in Benidorm and other parts of England, I would like to go one step further.

So that all those unfortunate dark-skinned Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, agnostics, atheists, secular humanists, Unitarians and gnostics aren't confused for terrorists, I propose all Muslims should be told to wear an armband with the crescent and star. Since we live in a multicultural society, these armbands could be available in a choice of colours identifying their ethnic origins (green for Pakistan, orange for India etc.). This will allow airport security to distinguish between pakis and sand niggers (niggers are easy to spot anyway). Perhaps wristbands can be dished out to younger, more fashion conscious, Muslims.

Comments

[Yakoub/Julaybib]

Have you heard about the Gallup poll in the US asking ppl if they think Muslims should carry 'special IDs'? Worryingly, 39% of those surveyed said they should:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002984956

Anyone remember pink triangles and yellow stars? Scarey stuff!

Wasalaam

TMA

[KKiller]

Good idea on the wristbands. Can't see history teaching us a lesson there...

While we're at it, could we introduce 2ft-tall head dresses which spell RACIST TW*T in neon lettering for idiots such as Lord Stevens who keep coming up with rebaked racial screening ideas.

I'd like the general public to be aware of the risk from such fruitloops, and keep them away from airport security.

[Jeremy]

The ISSUE of profiling, at least in terms of race, offends everyone. If you profile, people who get stopped feel singled out because of their race. If you make searches completely random solely to avoid charges of profiling then everyone else feels like they are being searched without good cause and worry that someone might slip through because the police are wasting time.

Either way you could still be looking at the wrong people. Terrorists have recruited converts to Islam who don't look any different from the average white European or American, so you can’t exclude someone because they’re white. However, if try to search everyone too avoid offending people you run the risk of missing a real terrorist because you are conducting pointless random searches instead of looking for people acting in a suspicious manner.

A perfect example of the problem with profiling occurred years ago when I visited London. There had been a couple of IRA bombings several months prior to my arrival. One of my friends, who has red hair, was traveling with me and got stopped for a more through search at almost every security checkpoint we went through which held. What was really interesting was the change in attitude of the security guards the second my friend opened his mouth and they heard his rather thick Alabama accent. I don’t think “y’all” is a word commonly used in Ireland or England, lol. About half the time they just hurried us through after they verified he was American by checking his passport. I noticed that a lot of other people we saw, almost all of whom were men with red hair, got stopped as well. My friend took it all with good humor, and had a lot of fun joking with some of the security officials, but I know he felt singled out. While the security people wasted time with my redheaded friend, another guy in our group walked through security at the Chunnel station with a large pocketknife he forgot to take out of his carryon bag before we left the hotel.

On the other end of the spectrum, the husband of my girlfriend’s best friend and several of the people he was flying with got stopped and searched at an airport here in the U.S. What was idiotic about it was they were all U.S. Army soldiers in full uniform with military IDs traveling with the rest of their unit to catch an Army chartered flight overseas. Even the people doing the search said it was a major waste of time, but they had to do it because of the regulations against profiling.

Either way you go, it’s just stupid. My opinion is we should just let the police and security officers use their good judgment and do their jobs. Most of the people in law enforcement, at least the ones I've met here in the States, have pretty good instincts when it comes to spotting someone or something that "isn't right."