The bottom-line justification for the new full-body X-ray scans and intimate pat-downs in airport security, from both passengers and government officials, is that they are worth the inconvenience and intrusion because they make it safer to fly.

However, there is scant evidence that this is true. Passengers may feel safer, but that doesn't mean the additional security measures are effective at identifying and stopping the next terrorist attack. That's because, like most post-9/11 security policies, they are reacting to prior threats. Instead of being one step ahead of the bad guys, they are always one step behind.

It's like repeatedly fighting the last war, with the Transportation Security Administration erecting another Maginot Line that the terrorists can make an end-run around. While the current screening process might ferret out a shoe or underwear bomber, terrorists already have demonstrated they can quickly move on to devise new ways of attacking a commercial aircraft.

The primary weaknesses in America's airport security are 1) it focuses almost solely on objects as threats, when it should be eyeing people; and 2) it treats everyone as a potential threat instead of screening for certain individuals.

The problem with the former is that there is almost no end to human ingenuity in fashioning a weapon out of an otherwise common, harmless item — and in hiding it. That sets up the TSA as constantly having to tighten restrictions on what passengers can carry on aircraft, and it requires employees to conduct more invasive searches. The logical conclusion of this strategy is to force passengers to strip naked and inspect their body cavities.

As former ambassador and counterterrorism expert Thomas E. McNamara recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, right now the TSA is searching for needles in haystacks. To better find the needles, it needs to reduce the haystack.

One way to thin the herd is to pre-screen certain classes of passengers. Frequent fliers, such as businessmen and women, could undergo background checks and be issued biometric ID cards. These "trusted" passengers would be expedited through security checkpoints, thus leaving more manpower available to check fewer passengers, resulting in shorter delays.

However, that still doesn't address the misplaced focus on objects instead of actors. That would require an intelligent screening process, one that relies on the training and judgment of each screener rather than a drone who follows static, bureaucratic procedures.

This is not the same as loosely defined "profiling," which to many people means looking only at a passenger's race, ethnicity or nationality, i.e., "Go after the Muslims!"

Israel has effectively instituted a system in which its airport security evaluates individuals based on behavior. In a recent column for the New York Post, military blogger Michael Totten, who has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, recounted his experience at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

Israelis, Totten writes, "couldn't care less about what your grandmother brings on a plane." Instead, officials interview everyone in line before they're even allowed to check in. Totten witnessed several Israeli Arabs breeze through security, but he — a white, Christian American — was pulled aside for additional questioning. Why? Because of the stamps in his passport, many of which are from Lebanon and Iraq. He spent the next 15-20 minutes answering rapid-fire queries from trained interrogators designed to penetrate a false story. Officers were searching for signs of nervousness or distress.

The system has worked well for Israel. But could it be implemented here? Israel is a small country with far fewer airports and passengers than the U.S., and thus has far fewer screeners it must extensively train in these interrogation methods.

Still, this is the direction the security debate should be taking. We're reminded of how the "Millennium Bomber" plot to attack Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999 was thwarted. A U.S. customs agent at the Canadian border noticed Ahmed Ressam was acting "hinky" and ordered a thorough search of his car, which was found to contain explosives.

The current setup not only is misdirected, it is unsustainable. As a consultant for Israeli airline El-Al observed of U.S. airports shortly after 9/11, "You do not have an airline-security system, you have a passenger-harassment system."

REPRINTED FROM THE PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD.