11.   In their zeal to identify suspicious characters, USA Today reports, security personnel may be unfairly zeroing in on African-Americans and Arab-Americans.

12.   Secret Service agents, Ekman suggests, may benefit from their job training in protection, scanning large crowds for a single suspicious looking character.

13.   So might a national ID database indicate potentially suspicious characters.

14.   So they go into the police business, developing a network of beggars and streetwalkers ever alert for suspicious characters.

15.   Suspicious characters will be stopped and questioned.

16.   Suspicious characters should be reported and so on.

17.   The police might stop suspicious characters in nice neighborhoods, or follow shady characters around the mall.

18.   The terrorist attacks on this nation also prompted calls for increased use of surveillance cameras in public places to watch for suspicious characters and suspicious activity.

19.   They also can track whether a suspicious character is preying on their children.

20.   But Oku said police have recently made frequent radio requests for cabbies to be on the alert for suspicious characters.