Washington, January 05: The US has toughened security measures for US-bound airline passengers from or via 14 countries, mostly Muslim, raising fears of profiling based on nationality, the Washington Post reported.
“Because effective aviation security must begin beyond our borders, (Transportation Security Administration) TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the US from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening,” said TSA spokesman Greg Soule.
The list includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, all designated by the US State Department as “state sponsors of terrorism”.
The ten designated “states of interest” are Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.
Passengers holding passports from those nations, or taking flights that originate or pass through any of them, will have their carry-on luggage searched and would undergo advanced explosive detection or imaging scans.
Passengers traveling from others countries will be subject to random screening or so-called threat-based screens.
“The directive also increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on US-bound international flights,” Soule said.
The screening standards are enforced and monitored by TSA personnel and foreign security inspectors around the world.
Additional behavioral detection officials are also in airports to observe passengers for any signs that might offer a hint of a plot.
There have been no comprehensive changes in screening at domestic airports but passengers may notice more canine bomb-detection teams or face occasional extra checks of carry-on bags.
The procedures, which came into effect on Monday, follow a failed December 25 bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound airliner by a Nigerian accused of links to Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
“All of a sudden people are labeled as being related to terrorism just because of the nation they are from,” Shora said.
Fears
A Homeland Security official defended the new measures as only meant to make airlines safer.
“Out of abundance of caution and based on the latest intelligence in this evolving threat environment, additional screening measures are necessary to keep transportation safe.”
Yet, many fear that the US might be moving towards broader racial profiling.
“I understand there needs to be additional security in light of what was attempted on Christmas Day,” Nawar Shora, the legal director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told the New York Times.
He added that the rule wrongly implies that all citizens of certain nations are suspect.
“But this is extreme and very dangerous,” he said, adding that they intend to file a formal protest.
The new measures mean that any citizen of those 14 nations will for the first time be patted down automatically before boarding any flight to the US.
“All of a sudden people are labeled as being related to terrorism just because of the nation they are from.”
-Agencies