http://boston.com/dailyglobe2/270/metro/Profiles_discouraged+.shtml

A contentious topic. This article criticizes it. Interesting the same Boston Globe online poll (I know, I know) is 70-30 for. No question that such profiles have led to many unnecessary DWB (Driving While Black) pull overs and worse abuses, specifically targeted at non-anglos. No question that a group, Middle Eastern folk, would bear the brunt of such profiling, but I cannot see a law enforcement officer ignoring 4 Middle Eastern guys traveling together on an airplane and instead querying a nordic blonde babe. Or checking out a midwestern businessman running a hazardous material vehicle while ignoring someone who speaks poor english and appears to be from the Middle East. In case you didn't know, cops can't just ignore don't profile stuff. They get fined, suspended or lose their jobs if authorities decide subsequently that they "profiled" someone. This is a real problem, especially for solid citizens of arabic decent, many of whom I know, but it seems to me that wartime profiling (not harrasment) is a necessary survival tool.

-philw