WTMD
x-ray luggage
Puffer/ETD

done deal.

Racial profiling is just a euphemistic phrase for racist profiling.

In our environment, that's certainly true.

By any name, it's still what it is. "Racial profiling" just makes more people feel comfortable rather than admitting that it's racist profiling. Most people don't yet feel fully comfortable admitting to holding racist feelings, with notable exception. Racism/tribalism directed at Arabs (and others perceived to be similar) and muslims is sort of "fashionable" as of late; and such racism/tribalism is certainly publicly acceptable in a way that it would not be if the words "Arab" or "muslim" were replaced by a whole list of other ethnic and religious groups.

"Racial profiling" -- for "preventive security" -- by "security forces" is generally conducted by the dominant ethnic group against the non-dominant/minority. Conducting such against one's own "race"/"tribe" just doesn't happen on the same basis. Racism/tribalism against "one's own" for "preventive security" just doesn't sell as well -- especially as "suspicion" of "the other" is so much easier than "suspicion" of "the familiar".

You're more likely to die from driving. Perhaps you should surrender your DL, for without it being taken, you may not live at all. What say you?

Don't forget the impact of racist/tribalist profiling in fostering extremist subculture. I've seen ethnic blacklisting and its impact in fostering violence: it's long-term ugly.

My guess is you are also more likely to die from stress related diseases from getting all worked up about the ineffectiveness of the TSA. But seeing as we are not ranking the most likely ways to die, it doesn't really matter. So should we have no security and just take our chances? After all, they are better than driving.
Spiff, I respect your opinion, but come now, do you really believe that these three steps will prevent a terrorist cell from taking down an airplane? It might stop prohibited items and anyone carrying explosives. It most certainly won't stop some determined terrorists from taking over and crashing another plane. Remember, locks keep the good guys out. Whatever the answer is, it is only a piece of the puzzle to which GUWonder alludes.
The other problem is that we want terrorists to play by our rules. Or more correctly, we don't want to play by their rules.

Yes, I really do.

Cooperation by passengers and crew is a thing of the past. It is enough to stop explosives and guns: knives are not a threat.

We should not abandon our freedoms for futile attempts to prevent every possible hijacking scenario. It's just not worth it.

Your guess is wrong, statistically. And from what I know of myself, the TSA won't be stressing me.

Well, by trampling on Rights, we seem to be playing into the terrorists' hands. In any event, terrorists are not going to "play by our rules". Otherwise they would not be called terrorists.

Who said anything about knives? I'm not talking every possible hijacking scenario. I'm talking about a group of terrorists accessing the cockpit and crashing a plane. Remember, if the cockpit is accessed, they can use the locked door to keep the passengers out. They won't need passenger cooperation. And if you think a well trained terrorist cannot access the cockpit, well so be it.

A lot of things are possible; but not everything is probable. For example, a well-trained terrorist could become a pilot in the USAF too. So are we going to get rid of pilots and shut down the USAFA.af.mil too?

More people die in terrorist attacks than die of stress related disease? Who would've guessed that?
You are exactly right, they won't play by our rules. So to stay in the game we have to adjust our play. Oversimplified, I know, but hopefully you get my point. Personally, I wouldn't mind giving up a few minutes and answering a few questions if it wouldreally make a difference to security. Right now it doesn't. Honestly, I don't know if it ever will but I'm willing to give it a try. Even then, I'm not sure that I would classify that as "trampling" on Rights. Infringing, maybe. Probably just a matter of perspective.

What's with all the obfuscation? Spiff said that three things are enough to provide real security. I disagreed and pointed out something that is much more possible and probable than your USAF example.

Well first, if everyone agreed with you and were willing to answer questions - they started asking them - it wouldn't be a "few minutes" of waiting, it would be probably 30-60 minutes to get through an average checkpoint at reasonably large airport.

Second, I'd say it's a trampling of rights to have to go through an interrogation before being allowed to travel.

But what's going to be even worse under such a system is that many people will be disallowed from traveling because the screeners don't like the answers they get. Nervous because it's your first flight or because the screener is asking intensely personal questions? You could be grounded right there.

Do your politics come through in the response to screeners' questions (perhaps you say that you're going to a rally for XYZ political candidate)? How hard would it be for a screener to abuse his or her power and prevent you from flying that day?

This kind of stuff is nearly bound to happen (power corrupts, as they say), and that's a huge, monumental trampling of rights. Even without this kind of thing government officials confirmed in the news a few years ago (there was a thread posted here on FlyerTalk in the news forum that doesn't exist any longer) that peaceful political dissenters had gotten their names on no-fly lists. And there are plenty of news reports of dissenters being prevented from traveling to political conventions and the like because of no fly lists, even though they weren't a danger to anybody physically. They may have been a danger to certain politicians political careers, on the other hand.

The point of this long post is that if we allow screeners to make arbitrary decisions about who flies and who stays on the ground, abuse will be nearly guaranteed.

Who here said more people die from terrorist attacks than die of stress-related diseases? Not I.

And as I said earlier -- from what I know of myself -- the TSA won't be stressing me and causing me any stress-related diseases leading to my demise.

Hard to disagree with that.

I cannot always see the benefit of giving something a try if it won't really make a difference and yet involves various costs -- including the cost of infringing upon Rights.

I am an advocate of experiments and trial runs -- understanding full well that some things cannot be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled/sustained in the absence of such -- but I don't think that means we are free to jettison our values or the Rights of others just for convenience and without thorough concern for consequence. It's certainly not an excuse to jettison commonsense and import the poorer aspects of what is done abroad.

Probably.

To avoid requoting everything, look at post 111. I'm sure it was a misunderstanding. You thought I was talking about driving vs. stress. I was referring to terrorist attacks vs. stress. Glad we got that cleared up.

Doppy I wasn't saying that the current version of the TSA should be asking the questions and I didn't say that they should be asking everyone. I was simply stating that if there was a proven way to increase the success of security and that meant I had to answer a few questions etc, then I wouldn't mind.

What's with all the obfuscation? You have yet to answer a question or two of mine above too.

A "foreigner" commandeering a large US commercial jet within the US and transforming it into a de facto manned-AGM over the continental US is not currently very probable.

My "example" of the USAF was given to implicitly ridicule the concept of making changes based on the improbable and without thinking of the other consequences of such changes. (I could say more to expand on this and related matter, but I'll go into a hold pattern. )

So tell me again what will racist profiling do to prevent commandeering of the cockpit that other things could not?

And are you opposed to reinforced cockpit doors since that will prevent passengers and others from as readily disrupting an actual commandeering of the plane?

I have already requoted everything in post 117, trying to keep things in context.

I was not talking about driving vs. stress; and I certainly did not think you were talking about "driving vs. stress". I was talking about driving vs. terrorism. Nothing more and nothing less therein. Hopefully we have that clarified finally.