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One of the problems with profiling is that it has a tendency to net people who 'look suspicious'. That means we begin to count all arabs as looking suspicious, and in particular any arab who presents a traditional arabic appearance (dress, beard etc). That makes it very easy for those who actually do mean harm to circumvent the system by doing their best to look unsuspicious: by wearing western clothes, by shaving their beard etc. Consequently, the ones most likely to be pulled in by profiling are the ones least likely to be up to no good.
If you were intent on bombing a plane; would you turn up to the airport wearing robes and a long beard? Or would you be clean-shaven and wearing a suit? Would you be gathered together in clumps speaking in your own language, or would you be boarding separately having learned and adopted an American accent?
Profiling is a very wide net which catches far too many people and notoriously allows through the very people you want to stop. In doing so you antagonise and potentially criminalise those whose support you most need.
It's particularly fraught when it comes to something like Islamic identities; given that ethnicity amongst the faithful is very wide indeed. So, do you stop anyone with black skin in case they come from an islamic part of Africa? Do you stop anyone with a moslem sounding name? Perhaps Obama, or Mohammed? How many of your own citizens re you going to hang a cloud of suspicion over? How many generations of settled American citizenry have now been deemed suspect because of actions taken by foreign radicals?
It doesn't keep you safe. Actual intelligence keeps you safe, or rather it should do, if the warnings are listened to and acted upon. Which in this case they clearly werent.
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