09/26/97- Updated 12:09 AM ET Profiling of fliers raises racial issue Laurence Boze says he watched in humiliation as two security officers yanked clothes out of his carry-on bag in plain view of dozens of other travelers at Baltimore/Washington International Airport. Boze, a black lawyer going to a convention, was kept at the gate for 30 minutes that July day. He tried to show them a business card that identified him as past president of the National Bar Association, but they paid no attention. "I felt threatened. I felt if I protested too much, I was going down," Boze says. A US Airways gate agent told him he was detained because he fit a profile designed to identify travelers who may pose a security risk. But the agent wouldn't be more specific. Boze doesn't believe it. "I fit neither a terrorist profile nor a drug trafficker profile. I was just F-W-B (flying-while-black)," he says. Boze's resentment is shared by many black and Arab-American fliers who say racial and ethnic bias is playing a bigger part in who gets pulled aside for questioning and a thorough baggage check by airport security. Complaints like Boze's have soared in the 14 months since TWA's Flight 800 crash prompted stricter airport security nationwide. The American Civil Liberties Union has received more than 100 complaints this year, the most since the gulf war in 1991. Arab-Americans and black Americans have filed the most, the ACLU says. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has received 200 complaints this year, 10 times more than in previous years. "Profiling has become just a fancy word for racism or stereotyping," says committee spokesman Sam Husseini. Federal officials won't say what criteria are used in profiling. But they deny any bias inherent in the system and say they take the complaints seriously: The Justice Department is reviewing a computerized profiling system, to be put into use by Dec. 31, for bias. The model is expected to be an improvement over the written guidelines that airport employees use now. Its report is due next week. Civil rights groups met with Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater for 90 minutes this week to discuss concerns about the profiling system. Participants included the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU and the American Muslim Council. One result: By Dec. 31, signs will be posted at airports telling travelers how to contact the Department of Transportation if they have a complaint about security. The DOT says it is investigating 45 complaints about racial and ethnic concerns received this year. "We are going to be working with the airlines on the things we're hearing about," says DOT general counsel Nancy McFadden. "We're going to be vigilant about this." Profiling is not new. American Airlines began using profiling in 1986, drawing on the expertise of former El Al employees who developed it for the Israeli airline. Simply put, profiling is a screening system intended to ferret out travelers who might try to hijack a plane or smuggle a bomb aboard. It involves asking questions - "Did you pack your own bags" and "Did anyone ask you to carry anything for them" are two examples - and examining a passenger's travel habits. A ticket paid for with cash, a one-way ticket bought the day of departure, or lack of a travel history with a particular airline may be red flags that lead to extra scrutiny. Airline and Federal Aviation Administration officials say profiling methods do not include racial or ethnic factors. They won't say how many people selected. And FAA officials say profiling is not supposed to be used to try to identify people smuggling drugs. Searches are made randomly and security employees have broad discretion in applying profiling guidelines. Stereotyping may creep in, they say. "There can be room for people's conscious or unconscious bias," says Cathal Flynn, chief of the FAA's security program. Arab-Americans long have said that profiling discriminates against them. In July, Cleveland doctor Hassan Abbass and his wife Julia filed a $4 million suit against US Airways after their luggage was searched in May. Abbass says his rights were violated. US Airways won't comment. An American Airlines document obtained by USA TODAY advises employees to look carefully at travelers born in any of 27 Middle Eastern cities and those with Arab-sounding names who don't carry U.S. passports. American says those instructions are outdated and no longer used. Some terrorism experts say it's prudent to look carefully at those with Middle Eastern connections because of terrorist groups with roots in that region. Art Kosatka, an airport security consultant, says 17% of all incidents that jeopardized airline safety last year occurred in the Middle East. But even terrorism experts are hard-pressed to find a rational explanation for why black travelers, without Middle East ties, are being red-flagged. The government warns airlines about violence in foreign countries and threats made against flights. Gate agents also use this information. Some agents might not be "sophisticated in distinguishing a black guy from Nairobi from one from Birmingham," Kosatka says. "Or maybe African-Americans could be the only ones complaining." Airlines rarely hear complaints, though. Civil rights groups say aggrieved travelers contact them or the government because airlines reply they're only following government guidelines. Boze wrote to the ACLU instead of US Airways. Travelers who have been selected for scrutiny rarely find out why. California state Sen. Diane Watson says she believes she was chosen because she was the first African-American in a line of 90 people for a Southwest Airlines flight in May. National radio personality Tom Joyner says he had a similar experience while flying first class on US Airways in July. "It was degrading. She wouldn't tell me what I said wrong. I had never seen or heard of anything like this before," he says. FAA officials say the Computerized Assisted Passenger Screening system (CAPS) that's set to roll out by Dec. 31 will move decisions about whom airport security pulls aside to a more scientific ground. Criteria are understood to include fliers' travel patterns and destinations. Flynn won't elaborate but says the new system will "remove the opportunity for unconscious or conscious stereotypes." Northwest Airlines is testing the system in several cities. Following "several" complaints, it has instructed gate agents to be less confrontational and more cordial to travelers during the process, says spokesman Jim Faulkner. The ACLU's Gregory Nojeim is skeptical about the CAPS system and thinks profiling should be abandoned. Bag matching, where airlines remove luggage from planes if their owners aren't aboard, is the most effective security method, he says. He calls profiling a placebo. "It's an effort to make passengers feel that something has been done to stop bombing of planes, even though it is unlikely to be effective." * By Keith L. Alexander, USA TODAY http://167.8.29.8/plweb-cgi/idoc.pl?405+unix+_free_user_+cgi.usatoday.com..80+US ATODAY_ONLINE+USATODAY_ONLINE+NEWS+NEWS++profiling