Rafi Ron, former Israeli airports security chief, has some interesting things to say in the latest CSO magazine about the failure of profiling in security. He refers to a better system as behavior pattern recognition (BPR):

My experience at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv has led me to the conclusion that racial profiling is not effective. The major attacks at Ben Gurion Airport were carried out by Japanese terrorists in 1972 and Germans in the 1980s. [They] did not belong to any expected ethnic group. Richard Reid [known as the shoe bomber] did not fit a racial profile. Professionally as well as legally, I oppose the idea of racial profiling. So we are left with behavior, because behavior is probably the Achilles’ heel of the terrorist.

Excellent insights from someone with extensive experience on the subject. It’s just too bad he didn’t use the term “behavior-ling”. :)