The Hasan Revelations
Can we stop taking our shoes off now? The Hasan revelations raise the unhappy thought that what we've been doing these past 8 years isn't security. It's security theater.
We thought there was a deal. The public would tolerate some admittedly dopey-looking procedures (walking through the metal detectors in stockinged feet) in the confidence that the authorities were doing the real work of identifying and surveilling the most dangerous threats to public safety.
Apparently not.
For years, genuine experts have warned against the folly of ethnic profiling - that is, applying extra scrutiny to persons because of their Islamic names or country of origin. They were right too. (A point Richard Perle and I argued in 2004 in the book we co-authored.)
But again - the alternative to ethnic profiling is not declining to react to suspicious behavior by a Muslim person lest we somehow corroborate a stereotype. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Indeed, hardly any Muslims are terrorists. But when authorities begin to receive credible information that one particular Muslim might be dangerous - especially if that person wears the uniform of the United States - it beggars belief that they would hesitate to act.
Yet hesitate they did. Too bad Hasan didn't try to smuggle a bottle of water aboard an aircraft. Then of course they'd have thrown the book at him.