More Britons call for passenger profiling

updated 10:44 p.m. ET Aug. 16, 2006

LONDON - As airport security tightens, checkpoint lines grow and tempers fray amid fears of devastating airborne attacks, more and more Britons are calling for the use of profiling to decide which travelers should be singled out as possible threats.

Advocates say it’s common sense: elderly women and families with young children pose little risk. Opponents argue it’s an ineffective policy which will alienate Muslims and — in the words of a senior police officer — create an offense of “traveling whilst Asian.”

“Any measures introduced have got to be intelligence-led and not beard-led,” said Shahid Malik, a lawmaker with the governing Labour Party.

Security at British airports was radically tightened last week after authorities said they had foiled a plot to blow up U.S.-bound jetliners using liquid explosives.

In the immediate aftermath, onboard liquids and hand luggage were banned and passengers endured long delays as security staff conducted hand searches of every traveler. That requirement has been eased, but the number remains far higher than the roughly one in four passengers searched before last week.

The Department for Transport now says that for the foreseeable future, most passengers will be searched.

Impossible to search everyone
Aviation security expert Chris Yates of Jane’s Information Group said that with airports’ current technology — focused on screening checked baggage for bombs and passengers for guns or knives — “you cannot check every single person for explosives. The airports would just grind to a halt.”

The gridlock seen at Heathrow and other British airports this week has prompted more people to call for profiling to select passengers for searching.

Michael O’Leary, CEO of budget carrier Ryanair, said it was pointless “to be body-searching young children traveling with their parents on holiday to Spain. These are not terrorists.”

Former Metropolitan Police chief Lord Stevens argued in the News of the World newspaper that “Islamic terrorism in the West has been universally carried out by young Muslims ... almost always traveling alone or in very small groups.”

NBC VIDEO Profiling debate Aug. 15: Reportedly British authorities are considering passenger-profiling. Joe Cantamessa, a former FBI special agent, and Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, debate. MSNBC

Racial and behavioral profiling has made Israel’s El Al arguably the safest airline in the world, but the policy is controversial elsewhere. In the United States, civil libertarians have objected to profiling programs introduced at U.S. airports which look for suspicious patterns of behavior.

Experts say an element of profiling already exists at British airports. Security staff covertly scan passengers looking for those who appear nervous or behave oddly.

Advocates of such behavioral profiling say it should be vastly expanded, arguing it is a vital tool that avoids stereotyping passengers by ethnicity or religion.

“You are looking for abnormal behaviors, and they will be different on any flight,” said Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International and an adviser on airline security.

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