WaPO: On airport security, do we really want to be like Israel?

[jberryhill]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/11/on_arirport_security_do_we_rea.html

I knew I was in for an unpleasant time when the young security man looked at my U.S. passport, looked me up and down and asked, "What kind of name is Dreyfuss?" "Jewish," I told him, "one of the most famous Jewish names in the world." I was somewhat shocked that he didn't know. What were they teaching kids in Israel these days? But I kept those thoughts to myself.
"Are you Jewish?" he asked. I told him no, but that my grandfather had been.

...

The next thing I knew, I was being directed to a very long line. Almost all the people on my line were Arabs or Africans. The much shorter, fast-moving line consisted mostly of white Americans and Europeans. Everyone on my queue was asked to open their luggage for inspection. When the security team got to me, they went through the books and magazines I had packed. A booklet from the Peres Center for Peace, which I had visited at the request of my publisher, seemed to raise alarm. The man searching my bag called a supervisor, who called his boss over. They asked me why I had visited the Peres center.

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More at link.

BTW, Israel has something like TWO airports, and Ben Gurion handles a whopping 50 flights a day.

[jancantor]

1. This falls under the DU meme of "but Europe is better"

(setting aside whether Israel is formerly Europe) that infects nearly every debate where a comparison is made. The USA is the most racist, incompetent, discriminatory, poorly educated, etc. etc. when compared to any Euro country. We're dumb merkuns after all. I've flown to Israel. Israel has security checks BEYOND the security gate (unlike here) and that would probably not even come close to pass constitutional muster . I'm not saying we can't look to Israel for help in what does and doesn't work. I'm saying that the reflexive assumption that "if we only did it like XXXX does" ignores differences. One of those differences, as you state, is the infrastructive difference you mention. There are others.

[jberryhill]

2. Correct

Israeli airport security operates within a larger context of what would be a surveillance state that would not work here.

Of course it is important to understand "what works" elsewhere, but ignoring the context and the peculiar requirements of 4th Amendment law in the area of administrative, suspicionless search is facile.