17.8.06

Terrorists, deodorant and ethnic profiling

Last week, British authorities arrested 24 members of a terrorist cell plotting to blow up about a dozen U.S.-bound planes simultaneously. As a result of those arrests, we learned:

1) Nothing being done by airport security since 9/11 would prevent a bomb from being brought onto an airplane; and

2) This terrorist plot — like all other terrorist plots — was stopped by ethnic profiling.

Last week marked the first official admission that everything government airport screeners have been doing until now is completely pointless — unless you're an airport security guard with a thing for women's undergarments, in which case it's been highly effective.