House Homeland Security Chairman Endorses Religious Profiling

Today's Newsday reports that Rep. Peter King, (R-NY), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, has endorsed religious and ethnic profiling. He would require persons of "Middle Eastern and South Asian" descent to undergo additional security checks, saying "if the threat is coming from a particular group, I can understand why it would make sense to single them out for further questioning." King has said that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all recent terrorists have been Muslim. Legal and law enforcement officials, however, have rejected racial and religious profiling both on constitutional grounds and on grounds of effectiveness.