The Case for Profiling

Why random searches of airline travelers are a useless charade

The latest airport-security scandal is the groping of female flight attendants and passengers during patdowns. Not to worry. The Transportation Security Administration chief is right on it. "We're going to fix that right away," he said recently, announcing the appointment of an ombudsman.

A nice bureaucratic Band-Aid. No one, however, asks the obvious question: Why are we patting down flight attendants in the first place? Why, for that matter, are we conducting body searches of any female passengers?

Random passenger checks at airports are completely useless. We've all been there in the waiting lounge, rolling our eyes in disbelief...

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