True or false, US airports should use racial and religious profiling.

That is what we are here to debate.

I'm John Donovan of ABC News.

We are at the Skurball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University.

And on NPR stations across the nation for this intelligent squared US debate on the proposition,

US airports should use racial and religious profiling.

This is a contest, a contest of a well-argued idea, a verbal joust.

And you, our audience, are here to listen and to act as the judges.

By the time this debate has ended, you will have been asked to vote two times,

once before the arguments and once again afterwards.

And the team that has changed the most minds will be declared our winner.

So on to round one, opening statements by each team in turn.

And I would like to introduce, as he rises from his table and heads to his podium,

Deroy Murdoch.

He is a syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.

Media fellow at the Hoover Institution, like me, he does a lot of traveling on airplanes

and Deroy have you been in the system lately?

John, I was in the system last night when I flew back from Nashville.

And have you experienced your first pat down?

Well, I have not yet, and I guess that may come up at some point in the future.

But let me be clear, John, if you touch my junk.

Ladies and gentlemen, Deroy Murdoch.

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