[Jaysun]

The passengers began to board, and he and his partner noticed a single Middle Eastern man sitting near the front of first class. After a number of passengers had boarded, two Middle Eastern men walked by this man and made eye contact, but said nothing. They sat down together in the front of coach class. Shortly thereafter, two other Middle Eastern men also walked by the man in first class and made eye contact without speaking. They sat near the back of coach class.

Racial profiling. I'll forever stand in support of the sensible practice.

[SpyGuy]

Racial profiling. I'll forever stand in support of the sensible practice.

Don't fall into the liberal trap. It's not "racial profiling," it's "criminal profiling." The criminal profile may be based on any number of factors (and, in fact, is usually based on several or more), of which a person's race is just one factor to consider.

[batenkaitos]

Being of , er, "tall, dark, and somewhat scary-looking" appearance, I tend to get taken aside a lot and questioned whenever I fly here in the US. I don't mind this, but I do think it's often open to human fallacies, where untrained security guards or (understandably) suspicious passengers take it upon themselves to get a bit overenthusiastic.

Anecdotes don't really mean anything, of course, but a few months ago, I was forced to miss my flight because one of the other passengers saw me fiddling with my iPod in my bag and automatically assumed that I was up to something, and I had to be taken back for another round of screeningwith security.