Seattle's undercover TSA officers - James Fallows

More on the undercover TSA officers - James Fallows: "About how it may be working in Seattle:

'I witnessed this in action at SeaTac airport on this past Sunday morning. But I have to say the quote: 'They do not focus on nationality, race, ethnicity or gender, said TSA spokeswoman, Sari Koshetz, does not ring true.

'As I (a nicely dressed white middle aged woman) sat there a young woman of Asian heritage was approached and asked for her boarding pass. She complied and I didn't think anything of it but realized it was a newly established check point. Then a few minutes later another TSA agent approached the same woman and asked again. Hmmm, was she so nervous looking? Not to me, she looked like the rest of us bored and waiting to go folks. She did have a nice long conversation on her cell phone in a language I could not understand but there are thousands of people who do this. Another young white woman who was sitting to my right was shocked and said 'but they just asked her'. Yep. So they don't focus on nationality, race or ethnicity? I am not at all convinced and will be observing to see how this plays out.' [JF note: Like all law enforcement work, this is tricky. Eg, in any sensible risk-based system people in their 20s would deserve more attention than people in their 70s or 80s. The trick of course is drawing the line between that sort of common-sense triage and blanket categorization. Let's hope TSA is working on it.]"