Odd how I specifically asked why OTHER governments can't profile and the thread so far has dwelt on issues of American law. I stipulated at the get-go that we have political problems within our own borders, probably a result of a long history of racism. But in what way does this impair authority in other countries from profiling? Despite what TSORon says, terrorists do not come in "all shapes and sizes". At least not the terrorism which is the enemy in our current war. Who are all these other jihadists who are not mail and Muslim? I've never heard of them? Oh there were the religion zealots who tried to kill people in Japan in subways. I have a strong suspicion that TSORon is not going to encounter them coming through a security position. Same with IRA renegades.

Anyway, perhaps responses could be more germane to my question which is how US legal barriers against profiling affect anything but screening methods within US jurisdiction.

Who says racist profiling doesn't occur within or beyond US borders? It happens at home and abroad already.

It's clear enough to me that you don't mind harassing innocent males who believe in Islam even as the number of male believers in Islam engaged in acts of terrorism are a statistically insignificant number of persons. Not everyone is a fan of such bigotry (as you may welcome), not even beyond US borders -- just like not everyone a fan of some country or group of countries' killing of muslims beyond US borders and thus inspiring some forms of political zealotry. Political zealotry has a basis in reality, regardless of whomever is the target of whatever kind of political zealotry is resulting in disgusting behavior ranging from bigots' profiling at airports to the killing and maiming of innocent people referred to as "collateral damage" of sorts by whomever is doing the killing and/or maiming of such innocent people.

Show me a country whose people are all free from a history of bigotry and you've probably made up a country or are depending upon ignorance and/or revisionist history.

I reject the concept that it is "harrassment" to thoroughly screen someone who could easily be a bomb carrier. As for the "insignificance" of the percentage, I am always asking myself why the overwhelming majority who are supposed to be against terror never speak up for their point of view. Don't start quoting the handful who have spoken up. I'm talking about the Muslim masses. They shouldn't, by their silence, be making the bombers their representatives. Actually it wasnt until Irish Catholics got sick of IRA bombers being given a pass that the peace process got underway in Ireland. Same is going to be true in the Middle East. The fact is that for every one white Christian who dies at the hands of these bombers, hundreds of Muslims die. We should be allies against them. It would be as if I was dead set against George Bush's illegal wars but kept silent because I hated the people against whom his wars were fought. A lot of people like me very vocal and active against Bush. I'd love to see that kind of rational impartiality among Muslims.

Anyway, it seems to me that if American authorities are going to fritter our money and their efforts away in a manner that makes a frontal attack on Americans' freedoms, then we have to rely on foreigners to do the unpopular things we refuse to do.

Talk about imagining "their silence" and supposed lack of "rational impartiality" in a world where "their" actions speak louder than words and most all are not terrorists. Let's not ignore the following: for every one person of European ethnic heritage(s) killed or maimed by some male self-identifying believer in Islam in the past three decades, the actions of persons of European ethnic heritage(s) over the past three decades have killed multiple more self-identifying believers in Islam. It's rather significant that -- despite all the harassment and worse directed against "the Muslim masses" -- the self-identifying believers in Islam who are terrorists remain a statistically insignificant number amongst "the Muslim masses" despite the violence perpetrated against "the Muslim masses" by non-"white Christian" terrorists and "white Christians" amongst others.

The bombers are able to swim like fish in the sea of Muslim bystanders. And there are those who say when we take steps to filter that sea to EXTRACT that tiny minority from the sea in which they swim, that is wrong, too. Well, good luck with that. There are only so many options available for our self defense, and if we are sane, we will use them. Be a lot easier if the Muslims simply presented the people to us that we are after, but I don't see any Muslim lifting a finger to help. So the "infidel" world will have to protect itself without that help. Sorry, self-defense is still a paramount right. You can argue all you want about other "rights", but if the ultimate meaning of them is the forfeiture of the right of self-defense, the arguments will fall on deaf ears.

Nonsense can be amusing. Thanks for the joke.

About you not seeing "any Muslim lifting a finger to help" and bombers swimming "like fish in the sea of Muslim bystanders", then I suspect that is a case of willfully ignoring/downplaying that which you wish to ignore/downplay. If it weren't for the believers in Islam undermining and turning over terrorists -- fishing them out as well -- the world would be a lot more disgustingly violent place than it already is.

Harassment of innocent believers in Islam on the basis of them being believers in Islam is not the definition of "self-defence" -- it is the manifestation of bigotry.

Another guy eager to make an interminable two-way argument. Well, you can blow smoke forever if you want, but I've really nothing more to say. We're really fighting ghosts the way we're doing it right now. We gotta stop the PC crap and focus on probable enemies. Imagine if in the Pacific War, we had decided it was unfair to ASSUME every Japanese encountered on a Pacific Island was an enemy. Luckily, the stupidity that now passes for a war plan hadn't occurred to anyone back then.

Imagination run amok.

An advocate for concentration camps too, like during "the Pacific War"? No need to confuse actual wars (of the past) with messy police actions going on today. A "war" on terrorism" is like a "war on drugs" and all those other un-winnable "wars" that involve going after non-military opponents.

The new "PC crap" is the tolerance for intolerance (and worse) directed at believers in Islam. When the kind of neo-"PC crap" found in the above post and the other disgusting behavior directed at believers in Islam stops then the risks about which the paranoid worry and the bigoted use as an excuse (to target believers in Islam) will be far better managed risks.

Lets see if I can help you out on that a bit. Air France �eh? Hmm, France.

When Where Who Victim/Target
2007-12-01 France Capbreton Basque Fatherland and Freedom (ETA) 2 Police
2007-08-24 France Messanges Basque Fatherland and Freedom (ETA) 3 Private Citizens & Property

2006-01-22 France Aix-en-Provence Corsican National Liberation Front FLNC) 1 Government (General)

2004-10-08 France Paris French Armed Islamic Front 1 Government (Diplomatic)

And more. Some Islamic, some not. Below is a link to the Global Terrorism Database, interesting reading. Glad I am able to help.

Global Terrorism Database

You still seem to totally miss the point. Possibly France bases its methods on whatever experience it has with terrorism (don't forget the colons of the Algerian war, the ones who wanted to assassinate De Gaulle).

But ETA, the Algerians, etc are NOT the concern of the the American government. And the American legal environment isn't their concern either. So why shouldn't they base their screenings on their perceived terrorism threat and laws, not OUR terrorism threat and laws?

Did you read that? Do you have an answer? Can you stop yourself from wandering off on some other tangent?

Tangent? Not hardly.

U.S. domestic terrorism is still a problem. In most cases, right now, it seems to be �cause� focused rather than politically. Animal Liberation Front, Anti-Abortion groups, ECO-Terrorism, etc. But there are very few countries that have been able to avoid terrorism against commercial aviation, and while it is no longer as common as it was it is obviously still a concern. Nothing prevents these folks from using commercial aviation as a weapon or target, nothing except the government�s efforts to prevent it.

Aircraft that transit U.S. airspace must meet certain standards of screening or be denied access to our nation�s airspace. The security of commercial aviation is in the best interests of every civilized nation, and even the most third-world of countries has some form of airport screening. Those that are unable to meet the requirements of U.S. Law do not fly into the US, but use airports in countries that can.

And all I was saying, if you read from the beginning was just because it is a political problem for American law enforcement to profile, why should that prevent any OTHER government from focusing on the groups representing an actual threat? The wider you spread the net, the bigger the holes, the more likely it won't filter out the dangerous ones.

Ahh.

Answer: At the checkpoint it is ineffective.

As a "silver bullet" single solution, you are correct - profiling at the checkpoint is indeed ineffective. But proper profiling can be part of layered security. Isn't that why TSA continues to operate the scientifically unproved BDO program?

Supporting Consitutional rights while working for the TSA is the exact living definition of the word "oxymoron".