In a press release today Florida Republican congressional primary candidate Mark Flanagan as far as I know became the first candidate for congress this year to officially endorse profiling for terrorists within U.S. airports.

“Events over the past weeks have demonstrated how vulnerable the United States and its allies are to potential terrorist attack,” said Flanagan. “If we are to win this war, we must abandon political correctness, identify clearly who the enemy is, and destroy them at their source while simultaneously protecting Americans from them at home. Five years after 9/11, it is past time to face our enemy head on.

Flanagan pointed out that profiling of Muslims would be in line with actions taken during previous wars, starting with Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeus corpus during the Civil War. The State of Israel has been profiling at airports for a number of years and their program has been highly successful and praised by security experts throughout the world. Flanagan believes that profiling is aimed at saving lives including the lives of Muslims.

As you might imagine his 15 point plan addressing immigration reform is equally direct. Update: Ok there is some debate about who may have been first.