We had metal detectors, X-rays and searches at airports long before the WTC incident, or did everyone suddenly forget that?
It didn't work that day.
Does anyone believe that a similar plot using commercial airliners would be on the minds of a terrorist group now? Bad and ingenious people can find a way around todays precautions also, or simply find a softer, different target. We're spending a fortune and making everyone's lives miserable by searching the shoes of 80 year-old grandmothers.
Osama bin Laden and his cronies must still be laughing their butts off at how stupid and gullible we are.
If I had to choose between two evils (random searches or profiling) I'd take profiling. Leave the grandmothers, familes on the way to visit grandma, Boy Scout and softball teams, haggard business people with families and mortgages alone, and focus on the common elements of the UK and WTC participants.
They are single or living away from their wives, they are recent immigrants or non-native visitors with no visible means of support or long-term jobs, of Arab descent and muslim. Those are the common characteristics and to deny that is lunacy and not very good security or police work.
Victim: "Help! I've been beaten and robbed!"
Police Officer: "Can you describe the assailant?"
Victim: "I can, but it is not politically correct and a violation of his human rights and constutionally guaranteed liberties."