Lunch at the Labs

Profiling Terrorists.

Since 9/11 there has been debate in this country about whether we should use profiling to catch future terrorists. The argument goes that all 19 of the airplane hijackers were young Arab males and 15 of them were from Saudia Arabia, so in the future we should take extra precautions with people who fit that profile.

The question I have is how hard would it be for a young Arab male to assume the identity of someone of a different ethnic background (I keep reading that identity theft is a common problem) and to disguise himself to not look like an Arab. Even without a sex change operation, I'm amazed at what some of the "men" I've seen in the East Village of NYC can do with their appearance. I'm afraid we are assuming Al Qaeda will act as they have in the past, but they seem to keep coming up with new ways to terrorize us. If I can think of this, I'm sure they can too. And why have I not heard this discussed in the media?

Posted by mjm at September 3, 2002 12:11 AM