That they apparently had no idea what a Hindu is doesn't make it one bit better.
As the article itself describes... when he skipped the pat-down (and therefore skipped the ERD), no one batted an eye at his race.
It's not a wise course to take government employees at their word.
I think that theory warrants about as much consideration as chemtrails.
Regardles, I wouldn't exactly put it past the TSA to make up a positive hit. It's not like we haven't ever had a police officer claim someone committed a traffic violation on someone based on appearance and ultimately find drugs or some other criminal behavior.
In the past two months, I've had pat-downs in DCA, BWI, and PHI (my home airport, SYR, doesn't have scanners, so there's nothing to opt out of).
They all use machines similar to this one:
http://www.tsa.gov/sites/default/files/images/edt_closeup.jp...
I've never seen a failure myself (the green bar you see pops up after a few seconds), but according to a friend who has, a red bar pops up instead.
I think it's more than a little hyperbolic to describe their actions as 'rabid racism'
They had a legitimate reason for suspicion. That reason wasn't the color of his skin, it was the color of a computer screen (a screen that flashes green hundreds of times a day flashed red in this case).
It's quite obvious that much ignorance and xenophobia followed, but I don't think it crossed (laughably subjective) line of 'rabid.'
A friend of mine who is about as 'all American' looking as you can get (white, tall, former marine...) tripped the same alarms after he had been firing a gun at a range the day before. He had an obvious and clear explanation for the alarm, so his experience wasn't as invasive, but they certainly gave him a hard time about it.
I suppose we could get into definitions of racism here. We're likely talking about "institutional racism", for which "prejudice plus power" is a pretty good definition, but I think perhaps "prejudice multiplied by power" might be even more apt. The prejudice was clearly considerable, but the power, and how it interacted with that prejudice, is what raises it to the level that I think could be called "rabid".
The only explanation that makes more sense if the TSA, NSA or FBI had warnings about very cleverly implanted explosive devices and want to keep that knowledge hidden. That would explain why the pat-downs didn't convince them (maybe they tried to evoke a pain response), why they didn't give him anything to eat or drink, and why the JetBlue representative didn't want him to fly on this day, but was fine with the next day...
In America, things are different. Sure the borders are porous; sure there is a low probability that the muslim guy down the street is a terrorist, sure there is a possibility that the war of 1812 could be repeated by the Canadians.
However, is the country really going to live its life based on insignificant probabilities? It has been 12+ years since 9/11. Surely, there is a time limit after which this insanity can mellow down.
Shouldn't we be "profiling" based on assessed risk? And isn't the NSA making those assessments? It should be a simple as submitting the user's identity and circumstances and getting a guided response back: "no likely threat", "detain immediately", etc.
Not that I'm a fan of the NSA, but isn't that what they are ostensibly there for?