FlyerTalk Forums - TIME: "Random Searches= Useless Charade"

Great article in the March 18 TIME (on the last page) by Charles Krauthammer: "The Case for Profiling...Why random searches are a useless charade"

Sorry that I'm not smart enough to post a link.

Anyway, he says, very articulately, what many of us have been thinking all along.

Beyond the benefits of tageting those most likely to do somethimng bad, he doesn't really get into the tremendous waste of time; the inconsistent enforcement; the fact that it's often possible to figure out what the pattern is and reduce the chance of a random search; and the examples that many of us have experienced of all too frequent holes in security.

This is the kind of publicity we need if there is ever going to be a chance of having security that is both effective and efficient. In the meantime, being in an airport is eerily similar to living in a totalatarian state, and going through security very similar to that line that you hear so often from the Gestapo in WWII films (e.g. The Great Escape): "Your papers please"