Home > Newsletter > February 2002

DON'T CHECK THE MUSLIMS FOR BOMBS

Believe it or not, that is what the "FAA Guidance for Screeners and Other Security Personnel" has to offer as security guidelines to airlines, just in case you wondered why a seventy-seven year old U. S. Congressman was asked to drop his pants during a strip search.

Congressman John Dingle (D-MI) is seventy-seven and has a metal hip replacement. As a result, he triggers the machines every time he goes home to Michigan, which is every week. He is searched both ways every week despite his age and credentials. Former Israeli Prime Minister Natenyahu was forced to take off his shoes at a New York airport to check for explosives.

Those of us who travel a lot (and I travel a lot) have seen it over and over again. Young men who barely speak English are patting down eighty-year-old women, while young men in turbans walk right onto aircraft unchallenged. I can attest that there is no real security at the airports as of January of this year.

Not too many are aware of the fact that I was an airline manager for more than a decade before becoming a conservative Christian activist. When I stand back and watch the "security" at our airports I truly understand what a joke it is. Let me state a fact:

Unless every single passenger is strip searched and their luggage checked by both machine and by hand, security does not work without profiling. Since we don't profile, we have no real security. The FAA guidelines specifically state that a screener should not "...rely on generalized stereotypes or attitudes or beliefs about the propensity of members of any racial, ethnic, religious, or national origin group to engage in unlawful activity."

This is why Muslim Richard Reid was allowed on an American Airlines jet from Paris to Miami with bombs in his shoes. He was acting suspiciously. He was sweating. He was reciting in Arabic. He had bought a one way ticket with cash. He had no address in the United States. He had no apparent means of support. He had no checks, cash, credit cards or hotel reservations. Yet he was allowed on the plane, while little old French ladies had their underwear gone through in their carry on bags. And security personnel patted themselves on the back for putting him on the plane because they were politically correct and didn't "profile".

Many times I just stand and watch the security "circus" at the airport. National Guard troops with machine guns are watching as non-citizens, many of them Muslims, search teenage girls who are part of a basketball team on tour, while men who appear to be real threats just walk onto the aircraft.

And those "random" searches at the gate, what about them? I am never searched because I know the system. I wait to board until someone else is chosen to be checked. I know the "random" check will keep the screener busy for five minutes, so that is when I board the aircraft. A real hijacker would never think of that, would he?

Then there is the "bag matching". It makes me feel really secure to know that a suicide bomber must be on the aircraft with his bomb. "Bag matching" is the single biggest airline security joke. It will not even stop someone who puts a bomb in his wife's suitcase to get rid of her. Since she is on the plane, the bag goes with her and so does the bomb.

Nothing works better than profiling. Why? Imagine a hold-up at a bank. Then imagine that the police were not allowed to mention the race, sex or age of those who robbed the bank. Now you see the problem with being politically correct to the extreme.

The reality: Islamic men from the Middle East are more likely to be terrorists than anyone else getting on an aircraft. If we refuse to admit that fact, we can have no security.