(AgapePress) - An aviation security expert says airport profiling of Arabs and Muslims must be done immediately in order to deter future terrorist attacks.

Charles Slepian is CEO of the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, a group that analyzes safety and security event data in an effort to identify how future incidents can be avoided. Based in Oregon, FRAC provides information on residential, commercial, industrial and institutional safety.

Concerning airport security, Slepian says instead of inconveniencing law-abiding Americans with random searches for weapons, airport screeners should be looking for terrorists.

"I think we need to profile -- but I think we need to have an understanding of what profiling is," Slepian says. "There are some amongst us who think that profiling is simply based on making a determination about a person's race or national origin. That is not profiling; that is an element of profiling."

He explains that profiling takes into account several criteria -- things such as travel patterns, age, gender, and travel destination -- that are put together to derive the known characteristics of a terrorist. He says profiling is this manner is not objectionable and will work.

Homeland Challenge
Regarding homeland security, the security expert is doubtful President Bush’s new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security will be up and running by September 11. Slepian says it could be several years before the department is functioning effectively.

"That's the kind of a plan that is going to take years, in my view, to implement. When you are trying to consolidate agencies under different heads, when you have to define who is going to be responsible for what activities, when you are merging activities -- history has proven over and over again that it's not something you can do simply."

He explains that individuals in existing agencies do not want to relinquish their areas of influence. "There are going to be turf wars [and] power wars -- and I don't see this [effective functioning] happening anytime soon," he says.

Slepian says there needs to be some consolidation, but to simply accept everything that now exists and put it under a new agency head is going to be a real problem for several years.

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