Airport Silliness

With his typical style, grace and good humor economist Walter Williams speaks out against stupid airport security:

"You're a detective. A woman reports a rape. How would you go about finding the perpetrator? Would you confine your search to males or would you include females as well?

You say, 'Williams, that would be stupid to include females!' But not if Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta were your supervisor. You might be ordered to investigate females and males as possible suspects to avoid committing the politically incorrect sin of sex profiling.

With regard to airport security, Mineta said, 'While the security procedures are not based on the race, ethnicity, religion or gender of passengers, we also want to assure that in practice, the system does not disproportionately select members of any particular minority group.' That means Americans who fit no terrorist profile -- mothers with children, blind and disabled people, elderly couples -- are frisked, groped and hassled. What's even more stupid is that pilots and flight attendants face similar screening. Here's my question to you: If a pilot is intent on crashing a plane into a building, does he need to carry anything on board to do it?"

Does anyone think flights are safer because the TSA frisks my 80-year-old mother?

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