Profiling young middle-eastern males (prohibiting their air travel, in fact) would have paid off in spades on the morning of September 11, 2001, but that has nothing to do with the usefulness of profiling similar individuals on any other day. Why not? Because airlines in the USA have transported billions of individuals since that day and not one (save Richard Ried, the Shoeicide Bomber) has engaged in terrorist activity inflight. Not a single young, middle-eastern male has turned out to be a terrorist in the last four years.

In hindsight, a non-negligble percentage of the young, middle-eastern males traveling that fateful Tuesday morning turned out to be terrorists. But since that day, the percentage of young, middle-eastern males who turned out to be terrorists has equaled Zero (0). Since the numbers prove (excluding, of course, the 19 terrorists from September 11) that they are no more likely to be terrorists than anyone else, profiling them for extra scrutiny is worthless as a security method. Agree with Bart on this one.

Of course, the un-American treatment we have all suffered at the airport in the last four years has also turned out to be a colossal waste of time and money (given that the number of terrorists, including the young, middle-eastern males plus everyone else is still Zero), but that's a subject for a different thread.