The Muslim News

WASHINGTON, (Xinhua): U.S. Muslim and civil liberties groups lambasted new U.S. airport security rules implemented in the wake of the foiled Christmas bombing of a U.S.-bound jetliner.

The new regulations were inked in response to the Dec. 25 attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound flight, in which 23-year-old Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab smuggled an explosive device on board in his underwear. The bomb failed to detonate and Mutallab, who said he was dispatched by a Yemen-based al-Qaida splinter group, was subdued by passengers and arrested.

Under the new rules, those carrying passports from 14 listed countries -- and those traveling from or transiting through them --will be subject to full body pat downs, body scans, luggage checks and be checked for explosives, the Obama administration announced Sunday.

But American Muslim groups and civil liberties organizations voiced disapproval over the security measures and said they amount to racial and ethnic profiling. "Under these new guidelines, almost every American Muslim who travels to see family or friends or goes on pilgrimage to Mecca will automatically be singled out for special security checks -- that's profiling," said Nihad Awad, national director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, in a statement. "While singling out travelers based on religion and national origin may make some people feel safer, it only serves to alienate and stigmatize Muslims and does nothing to improve airline security," he said.

In spite of the criticism, the Transportation Security Administration defended its decision in a statement.

"The new directive includes long-term sustainable security measures developed in consultation with law enforcement officials and our domestic and international partners ... effective aviation security must begin beyond our borders."

The agency has long insisted that it does not engage in ethnic or racial profiling, and officials said no technology now in place would enable authorities to screen every single passenger. Deploying such systems globally would take years and a comprehensive scan of every passenger would be disruptive, officials said. "TSA does not profile," Kristin Lee, an agency spokeswoman, told the New York Times. "As is always the case, TSA security measures are based on threat, not ethnic or religious background."

The American Civil Liberties Union, however, said the government should adhere to longstanding standards of individualized suspicion.

"We should be focusing on evidence-based, targeted and narrowly tailored investigations based on individualized suspicion, which would be both more consistent with our values and more effective than diverting resources to a system of mass suspicion," said Michael German, national security policy counsel with the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, in a statement.

The ACLU also noted that terror operations have been conducted by individuals from countries not on the list. Those include "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who is a British citizen, four of the London subway bombers, and a Belgian woman who in 2005 launched a suicide attack in Iraq, the ACLU said. The listed countries are: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen. Most, except for Nigeria and Cuba, are predominately Muslim.

Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical intelligence at global intelligence company Stratfor, said the move seems calculated to assure the public that the government is taking steps to protect it.

But in practical terms, al-Qaida and its splinter groups have access to operatives from a myriad of countries, including the United States and the European Union, and the organization need not limit itself to a pool of 14 countries.

"I don't see it being that effective," he said of the new regulations, although not all analysts agree with that assessment. Radicals are constantly seeking to exploit gaps in the system, as occurred during the 9/11 attacks when operatives used box cutters, which were allowed on board, to subdue passengers and flight crews, he said.

The most obvious way to exploit gaps in the new regulations would be to use an operative outside the 14 listed countries, and to find a way around scanning devices and other security technology, he said.

"In the U.S. mentality, we tend to focus on some awesome new technology that we think will solve all our problems," he said. "We haven't paid enough attention to human intel."

Indeed, the U.S. approach to technology-based security has spawned the creation of a number of devices from companies attempting to sell their products to the U.S. government. Some of those include face reading technology -- to determine if a passenger is lying to authorities -- and a number of other scanning devices. Stewart said the surest way to spot a would-be hijacker or bomber is to conduct a short interview with each passenger -- Israel's El Al airline has had success with such methods -- and watch for signs of stress or nervousness common in individuals planning to execute terror attacks, he said.

"It's hard to behave normally under the pressure of smuggling something on board, and talking to an official raises tension," he said.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

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