According to Michael Smerconish, the US government's airport security policy makes no sense. If Muhammad Atta and the four friends who crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center showed up to board a flight, airline security personnel, even after 9/11, he wouldn't have been able to get them out of the boarding line. to ask them just one question. Why can't airlines collect them? Precisely because they resemble Atta and his terrorist gang. These are young Muslims of Middle Eastern origin. Now, under US law, airlines have a duty to refuse to carry any person or thing that could pose a safety hazard to the flight. And the Federal Aviation Act gives the aircraft Captain broad discretion to remove people or cargo from a flight, as long as the Captain's exercise of his discretion is not arbitrary or capricious. But the way the law is written is not the way it is enforced under the upside-down policy of political correctness imposed by Department of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.