Thrawn, in answer your question - the students who wrote the paper set out to try to prove mathematically how that particular profiling system is easily defeated. (I suspect that they began with a bias against profiling to begin with - but that is beside the point).
Their theory makes a kind of sense on paper, but it does not take into account real life variables or human psychology or the fact that profiling is a fluid process. In fact, the students who wrote the paper assume that the system is static. Additionally the paper assumes that if some part of the system is exploitable, or if the system fails to identify an individual terrorist, the system is not effective.
That is not true. Profiling is only a part of the security system. There are also x-rays, dogs, manual searches, explosive sniffers, interrogation, etc. If your profiling is no longer effective, you change or update your parameters with incoming intelligence. Furthermore, random searches are always included.
Terrorism is a very, very, very effective way to use resources, especially if the operators are willing to die. There is very little you can do to stop it unless you want to lock down everything, as El-Al does. Its a balance between freedom and security.
Just my .02. Miko knows what I'm talking about.
The fact is, profiling is going to occur no matter what any of us think about it. PC people may force a different name to it, but profiling will always be put to use.
Maybe this is a semantics problem?
