Thwarting Airline Security One Step at a Time

Since 9/11, more stringent airline security rules have been put in place. People are looking at those who fly - both passengers and flight crews - more warily. People are more vigilant to actions that seem out of place or incongruous. Those who take actions that violate air rules are tossed from planes or are prevented from flying altogether.

Whether by luck or a combination of luck and these new realities, there hasn't been another hijacking of airliners in the US since 9/11. Yet, there are those who wish to tempt fate by demanding an end to what they call racial profiling.

The repercussions of an airline’s decision to remove a group of imams from a commercial flight in Minneapolis could be heard in Congress this year, with civil rights groups pushing Democratic lawmakers to ban racial profiling.

The incident happened in November, made national news and reinvigorated an old proposal that got little attention from the GOP.

Now, a champion of the legislation, Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction on the issue. Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., who sponsored legislation to ban racial profiling in the last Congress, now chairs the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.

To recap the situation with the flying imams, the situation was perpetrated with the express purpose of causing a controversy designed to bring about the elimination of profiling as a useful law enforcement technique designed not only to keep the flying public safe, but those on the ground as well. The imams lied about the facts and circumstances of the events of that day, continue lying to this day, and yet they have enablers in Congress who have bought the story hook, line and sinker. Powerline concurs that the flying imam kerfuffle was designed to spur anti-racial legislation.

Indeed, the legislation being considered would make profiling a criminal act. To what end? It isn't about religious freedom. It isn't about improving national security and transportation security. It's about pushing an agenda by a group of Islamists whose ultimate goals are less than honorable. It would make the nation less safe, and yet there are those who think this a good idea?