U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. Rep. Don Young, Chairman

Contact:  Steve Hansen (Communications Director)  (202) 225-7749
    Justin Harclerode (Communications Assistant)  (202) 226-8767

To:  National Desk/Transportation Reporter
February 26, 2002

Profiling Of Airline Passengers To Be Focus Of Congressional Hearing;
“Profiling for Public Safety: Rational or Racist?”

        Washington, D.C. - The increased practice of profiling airline passengers for aviation security purposes and possible improvements in the current policy will be the focus of a Congressional oversight hearing Wednesday morning.

        The hearing - “Profiling for Public Safety: Rational or Racist?” - by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Aviation, chaired by U.S. Rep. John Mica (R-FL), is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 27th, in 2167 Rayburn HOB.  Live audio and video broadcasts of the hearing will be available at the Committee’s website:

www.house.gov/transportation

Tentative Witness List

- Raphael Ron, former Director of Security at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport
- Professor Jonathon Turley of George Washington Law School
- Laura Murphy, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Profiling As A Security Measure

        Since enactment of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act on November 19, 2001, the Subcommittee has held two oversight hearings on the law’s implementation.  The first, on December 7, 2001 looked at the difficulties in meeting the December 31, 2002 deadline for screening all checked baggage with explosive detection equipment.  The second hearing, on January 23, 2002 focused on the 60-day deadline for screening checked baggage by other approved means.

        Some security experts have suggested that focusing on baggage is not the best approach.  Rather, they suggest the focus should be on the person.  This usually means profiling to try to determine in advance which passengers pose the greatest risk.

        Also, because of the limitations of existing bomb detection technology, aviation security experts have sought to use profiling to reduce the number of passengers to be screened.  This would allow airport security to focus on those passengers who are most likely to pose a threat.

        Concerns about discriminatory profiling persist.  However, since September 11th, attention has shifted to the effectiveness of the profiling system currently in use.  It is unclear whether the current profiling system selected the terrorists who hijacked the planes on September 11th.  Moreover, many people note that the type of person who is often selected for additional screening, elderly women, disabled passengers, and children, are not the sort of person who is most likely to pose a terrorist threat. They suggest that any profiling system should focus on those who are more likely to pose a threat.

        It has been reported that Federal aviation authorities will soon begin testing a system designed to pull together every passenger’s travel history, living arrangements, and other personal and demographic information.  The plan is to establish a computer network linking every reservation system in the U.S. to private and government databases.  The computer network would use data-mining and predictive software to profile passengers and look for potential threats.

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