In October of 2004, I learned first-hand just how serious our federal government is about defending us from terrorists who threaten airliners; it isn't.

I was at Boston's Logan Airport, and had just checked in for my one-way flight to Baltimore where I would board a charter flight bound for Qatar. From there I was to take a military transport into Afghanistan where I would spend the next several months - I was an officer in the U.S. Air Force.

My one-way ticket to BWI automatically triggered a call for additional screening at the security checkpoint. Dozens of other people breezed through the magnetometers and retrieved their checked and carry-on bags from the x-ray machines' conveyor belts as I, military orders in hand that denoted my 'top secret' security clearance, dutifully removed my jacket, boots and dogtags and watched as a TSA agent who could barely speak English rifle through the big green bags containing my uniforms and other gear issued to me for the deployment.

Minutes earlier, at the ticket counter I had already declared and opened for inspection the locked case that contained the M-9 pistol that would be in my checked baggage. I was in civilian clothes (the Air Force, at the time, did not permit us to travel in fatigues), but it was certainly obvious where I was going and why. That day, the intrepid people of the TSA protected everyone on the Delta Shuttle from a blond-haired, blue-eyed military officer with a Southern accent on his way to the "front lines" of the "Global War on Terror."

I don't fault the agent for following orders; I do fault the people at the top of the TSA and federal government who forbid the people on their "front-lines" from acting prudently and focusing on people who may represent an actual threat.

I've seen similar scenes around the country in the years since, with soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in combat uniforms getting the third degree from the TSA as they forget to throw away a water bottle or remove a coin from one of a dozen pockets. Does anyone honestly believe that making a show of frisking senior citizens, toddlers or military personnel keep us any safer or deter some jihadi ready to lose his life killing infidels for Allah?

Some will accuse me of advocating for racial or ethic "profiling" at airports. Guilty as charged. Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists, but the people who've been trying to blow up airliners with varying degrees of success are all Muslims.

Law enforcement agencies all over the world employ highly skilled professionals to create detailed "profiles" for suspects in the most heinous of crimes. Creating a profile saves time, money, and other resources by focusing an investigation on as small a subset of the general population as possible. In the name of political correctness and in order to placate agitator "victim" groups like CAIR, the TSA, airline employees and security agencies at airports around the world routinely ignore those who fit the profile for potential airline terrorists: Middle Eastern or North African Muslim men between the ages of 18 and 40.

By Sept. 12, 2001, weren't we all aware that if someone of that description purchases a one-way ticket with cash and has no checked or carry-on luggage for a U.S.-bound intercontinental flight on an important Christian holiday, a little additional screening might be in order? Not in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted to bring down Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit by detonating explosives he had hidden in his underwear. Not only did he walk through security with a fairly common and detectable plastic explosive, but there are now reports that he may have boarded without a valid passport.

If Schipol is anything like an American airport, no doubt the Dutch security screeners were too busy looking for pot in the backpacks of young American tourists or going through the purses of little old Lutheran ladies to take a second look at a man who fit the profile of a likely suicide bomber . Even after the suspect's father, a prominent Nigerian banker, rightly reported his son to U.S. State Department officials as a potential terrorist, Abdulmutallab's name apparently didn't get on the same "no-fly" list that once famously included the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens or the radical Irish-Catholic threat to airline security, Senator Ted Kennedy. Do the TSA, FAA, and American airline companies not have access to the kind of technology and techniques used by the Israelis for flights in and out of their country? Of course they do; but there have been conscious decisions by political appointees in this Administration and the previous one not to employ security screening measures that have proven to be successful.

The response of TSA and FAA to this latest attack, thwarted not by their system, but by flight attendants and ordinary passengers who put out the fire and subdued the man (hopefully they don't get sued) will be to issue new guidelines tweaking a few security procedures and a call for more full body x-ray scanners. In short, they will continue to treat all air travelers like suspected terrorists, while continuing to ignore those who may actually pose a threat.

Sam Deaton
North Chattanooga

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There are billions of Muslim men and women who aren't extremists just like there are billions of Christians who don't blow up abortion clinics. Is it politically correct to say that as a world community we're not going to assume that billions of people are instinctively criminal just because of who they worship?

Jack Rice, former CIA agent, said it best in regards to this current "attack" hype. "If we’re going to racially profile, we racially profile everybody across the Middle East. Now we find that this young 23-year-old man from Nigeria—most of Nigeria is Christian by the way—so I guess what we’re going to have to do is include all of the people of Africa. But now let’s contemplate al Qaeda in the Philippines, so now we have to include people in Southeast Asia, so now we have about four billion people.

"Look, I think when people make an argument for racial profiling they’re either lazy, they’re either arrogant, or frankly they’re racist. This is a foolish idea and the worst part of it all is that what we’re going to do is alienate about 1.5 billion Muslims. We desperately need these people on our side. If we go down that path we’re in a very, very serious problem."

Do we know require as a world that people be issued little badges that list what religion they are? As if that wouldn't be easy to fake. Okay so I suppose now we search everyone who looks like a terrorist or has a name like a terrorist? Wait, the shoe bomber (who was taken down in the exact same way as this guy and once again got on from another country and not through the fault of TSA officials in America) was named Richard Reid. Well crap. I guess that means we just profile any brown people right?

Treating every Muslim as if they're a terrorist isn't going to save lives, it will just create more terrorists. However I do think we should hold those responsible for weakening the TSA's ability to change the spectacularly failed security measures of the Bush administration by holding up Obama's nominee for head of the TSA.

Sadly Jim DeMint isn't being rightfully attacked for obstructing America's security because he thinks the nominee is too open to allowing TSA to unionize. TSA isn't properly lead right now because a Republican has put keeping workers from collective bargaining over keeping Americans safe. That's something we can actually fix without creating more terrorists.

I'm proud of your service and I'll pray for you while you're over seas like I pray for all our troops.

John-Michael Bond
Chattanooga

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First of all, thank you Sam Deaton for your service to our country.

Second, I agree with your opinion.

Third, my son served in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and 2004. When he was boarding the plane in Chattanooga to go back to Iraq (after his 15 day R&R), he was wearing his desert fatigues. The machine you walk through went off. He was asked to step to the side and was checked with a wand. Everywhere he set off the wand was on one of the metal buttons on his fatigues or on his boots. He had to empty his pockets and take off his shoes (this was before you had to take them off before going through the machine). If anyone has ever laced up boots of any kind that almost come up to your knee, then you know how hard they are to undo and redo. My son was taking all of this in stride, being polite and following all the request of the TSA person.

On the other hand, I was standing on the other side of the rope seething. I did not say anything because I did not want to cause any problems for him. I was worried enough that he was headed back to Iraq to deliver anything that was needed by our GI’s anywhere from Kuwait to Turkey and all points in between. On the way back to the car I was talking with my husband and saying I didn’t understand why they would put someone from our military, like you that had their orders with them, through so much?

I am glad that we have checks in place to prevent another 9/11 with the Twin Towers, but…

Cheryl Bennett
Rock Spring
CBenn7630@aol.com

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Sam, thank you for your service to our country. Serving in the military, I'm sure you are aware that anyone can walk into an Army-Navy store, such as the one on Brainerd Road, or shop over the internet, and purchase a uniform exactly like the one you wore. Were I a terrorist, and thought for a split second that the TSA would never have the nerve to scan, nor inspect, a soldier in fatigues, or dress uniform, by golly I'd be buying up all the military gear I could.

You mentioned being blond, so was Timothy McVeigh.

Just exactly what does a terrorist look like? Since they can be profiled so easily, why are our troops having such a hard time locating them? Fact is, the lunatic, fanatic fringe of Islam, fits no particular mold. They are black, brown, and white. They can be clean shaven just as easily as not. They can be poor, wealthy, or middle class. Their strength is in not fitting any particular mold, or demographic. They hide in the shadows and in the open, among us.

This last attempt is a prime example of the problem at hand. How do we protect ourselves from "stelth-undershorts?"

This is a new type of enemy for our military. We spent decades building troops, arms, missile's, and smart bombs, while developing deployment plans to fight our enemies in the open. The terrorist doesn't play by those rules. The only way to fight the terrorist is with a clandestine police action, and by utilizing our special forces.

Spending our time profiling and denying basic human rights to someone because of looks, gender, or religion will only exacerbate the problem.

The only answer the TSA has, with the situation as it stands, is to treat every single individual going through the airport as a suspect. They are doing a good job as far as I have been able to tell. There are always going to be individuals that considers themselves above suspicion, and take umbrage at having to be subjected to a search. That is human nature.

One last point. Aren't nations that profile and discriminate, because of religion and race, the exact type we have always had to take up arms against?

Rod Dagnan
Chattanooga
roddagnan@comcast.net

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John-Michael Bond wrote about airport security, "Treating every Muslim as if they're a terrorist isn't going to save lives, it will just create more terrorists."

So what do you think treating every honest, law-abiding, natural-born and tax-paying American citizen like a terrorist is going to create? Domestic tranquility and civil obedience?

In order to visit the auto license branch in the Hamilton County courthouse the other day, I had to leave my ever-present pocket knife in the car, then I had to empty my pockets and remove the belt from my pants once I entered the courthouse. Boy, did that make me feel welcome and honored and safe.

Now, I wonder: Who in that building is exempt from such near-strip searches? Does every employee, every clerk, every elected official, every judge, etc. submit to the same indignity every time they go to work? Are we to believe that there aren't any nail files, nail clippers, letter openers, hatpins, etc. anywhere in that whole big building? My bet is, a lot of people who take tax money in salaries get a free pass; it's those of us who pay taxes who get treated like terrorists. My opinion is, anyone who doesn't trust me with a knife, etc., is someone who I can't trust in return.

Roy Exum wants to get rid of traffic cameras; I'm with him on that. Personally, I want my pocket knife back. There's no reason on Earth that I can't be trusted to carry that knife anywhere I want to go. So, I'll add this to Roy's note to prospective candidates for office: If you want my vote, promise to take care of that small detail. Then I'll think about voting for you.

Larry Cloud
Chattanooga

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On a recent trip to Jamaica, We were checking in our bags, for our return trip, two young Jamaican Airport Security Agents smiled and said we won't check your bags for a dollar.

Billions of dollars spent for nothing.
A terrorist could stand at the end of the runway and shoot down a plane on takeoff or landing with a rifle.

In a free society, taxpayers without criminal records are not suspects for possible future crimes, without evidence. We have a Bill of Rights, Remember. All the previous terrorists had connections to terrorist groups, and the government knew it, they weren't people visiting their mother. Does anybody else feel like they are in Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart waiting for a Nazi to check our papers?

"If you give up freedom for security, you don't deserve either." Ben Franklin

Chuck Davis
Lookout Mountain

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In response to the piece written by Mr. Deaton, It sounds as if he's saying profiling of any kind is simply a tool used at the discretion of law enforcement and security agencies. I think, and know, he is in fact correct. And I agree with him in that in order to not offend anyone, these agencies go to great lengths to ensure that not everyone they check resembles what some might call Muslim.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where most don't realize what our country has gone through and some think to get anywhere in this society, the easy way, is to sue the pants off of anyone for what ever reason they can think of.

I do believe this is still the greatest country the world has ever seen and I, yes, did serve my country in Iraq in 2003 as way of giving back what little I could. While I was still in the Marines, when I did fly, I was given the third-degree while everyone else just went on their merry way. Maybe instead of taking offense at what Mr. Deaton is saying about profiling and like techniques, maybe we should consider laying off on getting our feelings hurt and consider the fact that we are engaged in an new type of warfare. Just my opinion.

Kristoffer Tinney
Chattanooga

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There's nothing wrong with profiling for police work, airport security, or whatever else. It is reasonable and a justifiable for a society to look very hard at a potential terrorist by using an additional layer of attention to a particular physical or social type. There is no dispute that Muslims mastermided and executed attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001, the attacks on the USS Cole, the attempted airplane bombings by the shoe- and underwear- bombers, the bombing that killed 272 Marines in Lebanon in the 1980s, and the attacks on Western (especially American) embassies in Tanzania. So what's the big deal? Profile Muslims since they're the group that's causing the trouble. It's the right thing to do. It would be the right thing to do if Christians or Jews were going overseas and killing innocents by bombing homes, airplanes, and marketplaces. It's the right thing to do at home with young people who fit a racial profile more likely to commit violent crime, and I applaud police for putting more attention on those proven statistically to be most likely to violate the law.

If someone belongs to a particular ethnic and/or religious group that threatens American security at home or abroad, they should be working hard with authorities to out the responsible individuals that are causing the trouble. (Interestingly, the Christmas crotch bomber's father had tried to do just that by reporting his son as a potential problem, even having him placed on a list of people to pay special attention to. Kudos to the father, and onions to the TSA for dropping the ball.) I'm fully aware that the vast majority of Muslims are not violent anti-Western extremists, but I'm also fully aware that the ones causing the problems are Muslims nonetheless. So we should profile the heck out of them -- all of them -- until the threat subsides.

As a society, if we're so stupid to look in Granny's bags or hinder an American patriot as he boards a plane to go abroad to fight for those of us who stay at home, maybe we should take another approach altogether. Let's treat everyone the same. Use the whole-body scanner on everybody going through every checkpoint, and pat everyone down. That's pretty draconian to propose when only a tiny fraction of people are the evil ones, but if we don't want to offend Muslims, let's just dehumanize everyone. It's the reasonable and safe thing to do. No one wants to be humiliated by a prison-style security screen, but no one wants to get killed by a person from an ethnic group known to be the source of the killers either.

Jim Nichols