Reply #18: It sounds strange....

[Sufi Marmot]

For starters, how would the screeners know the ethnic identity or citizenship of people unless they were part of a large group obviously travelling together? It's my notion (and someone correct me if I'm wrong...) that the people who rummage through your bags as they come out of the X-ray machine don't check passports or identity, they just give more scrutiny to anything they don't recognize or that looks suspicious.

At the gate, they take your ticket and often look at ID (doesn't haveto be a passport, just photo ID) to verify the name matches the ticket. Do the people who nab you right before you go down the ramp to give you a more thorough "wanding" and shoe inspection also look at IDs or do they just nab anyone? Again, how would they know that any given person is "Arab", rather than Hispanic, Mediterranean, or from the Indian subcontinent? :shrug:

-SM