[starship]

Profiling is absurdly counterproductive, but not for the reasons the paper describes. We don't need detailed analysis for this one, simple math will do. Just to be clear, we're talking about heightened security procedures for passengers of Arab ethnicity (as a proxy for people of Muslim faith.)

The problem? The majority of muslims aren't Arab! There are large numbers of: - asian muslims, Indonesia = world's largest muslim country - black muslims, across various African countries, i.e. The Underwear Bomber - white muslims, in the balkans and Chechnya for example - And of course there's large numbers of muslims in India, Pakistan, and Iran who are not of Arab ethnicity, although they might or might not look similar enough (depending on dress most likely) to get thrown into the same profiling bucket.

The paper goes into the details of how a profiling system would be optimally set up, but the entire issue is moot. The premise that we have a good understanding of what groups should be receiving heightened security screening is itself wrong.

(Note: I couldn't find the statistic with a few minutes of Google searching, so I'll keep looking, but I know I have seen it reported that >50% of muslims in the world are of ethnicities other than Arab.)

[yummyfajitas]

The paper describes profiling as being statistically optimal, not counterproductive.

Also, no one proposes using Arab ethnicity as a proxy for being Muslim - who cares if someone is Muslim? Arab ethnicity (or being a Muslim) is used probabilistic evidence (not a proxy) for a person being a terrorist.