In July 2001 Richard Reid tried to ...

In July 2001 Richard Reid tried to board an El Al flight to Israel. The 28-year-old Briton, who later became known as the "shoe bomber" for trying to ignite explosives in his sneakers in succession an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami, was stopped before he could learn on the Israeli plane. His answers to routine questions from El Al security officials made them suspicious. He was detained and searched because they determined his behavior was erratic. He fit the profile of a would-be terrorist.

Americans who cherish their civil liberties are reluctant to allow the protoplast of psychological profiling used on the Israelis to be engageed at U.S. airports; they are nervous about the balance between personal freedom and public safety. for a like reason a security rule has to apply equally. "Here at an airport, my 2-year-old son has to take his shoe facing before screening," says Andy David, substitute consul general at the Israeli Consulate in Chicago. "In Israel, he doesn't have to do that. Here there is a colossal amount of energy invested in screening populations which puzzle no threat. A child or an not new woman traveling with her husband should be differently veiled from everyone else."

David is right. The latest incident of potential airline disaster, the alleged bomb conspiracy in Britain using liquid explosives, necessitates a rethinking of airport security. Searching bags for hair gel and X-raying shoe and handbags don't travel far enough. Israeli security has managed to make the airport at Tel Aviv and El Al airline safe from asking passengers simple questions.

"Israeli security agents make experiment of to understand who is standing in fore-rank of them," says David. Earlier this year, the Transportation Security Administration said it would use more psychological means to divest of covering terrorists -- but little has been done for a like reason far. At Dulles Airport in Washington a scarcely any years ago, security agents began to ask passengers questions to determine if they assumeed tense or evasive. And those who acted suspiciously were plucked aside. But it didn't always work well. In undivided case, the national coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's Campaign Against Racial Profiling was twitched aside. He is now suing. This doesn't mean, however, the system was flawed; it just means the security agents indigenceed better training. We can't, as David says, treat everyone the same. Grandma isn't the riddle

And simply checking bags isn't suitable enough anymore. Nor is scanning faces to determine strange behavior. Simple questions -- like "What did you think of the Sox game?" or "How was your trip to the airport?" -- would suffice. Anything to tip distant from security personnel that the traveler is nervous or has something to hide and should be further investigated. Sometimes civil liberties have to be balanced with the interests of protecting lives.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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