Scoville's points are well taken. Profiling has its place, when looking for a particular wanted person for whom a description enables the authorities to rule out a lot of persons.

On the terrorism side, since we all are reading the same public information sources, terrorists included, nothing could be more inviting than news that a particular quality eliminated certain persons from inspection.

Don't forget the case where the Palestinian boyfriend kissed his pregnant Irish girlfriend and sent her to board an El Al airplane complete with plastic explosive.