Among Lehman's questions was this: "Were you aware that it was the policy...to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory?"

Judging by Secretary Lehman's question of Dr. Rice, this ridiculous policy might still be in place by the Department of Transportation, which would mean our airlines continue to be exposed to great risk of terrorists who travels in threes!

So I ran all of this by Herb Kelleher, the legendary chairman of Southwest Airlines. Kelleher confirmed it, and that it began during the Clinton administration. The Justice Department said it was "concerned about equality of treatment with respect to screening." Kelleher said, "The random element was put in...where you just choose people at random as opposed to picking them out for some particular reason, and that of course caused a great many more people to be screened."

"So we don't offend?" I asked.

"That was the root of it, yes," he said.

[in full at 04.04.30a.htm]

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