Posted on 04/02/2010 5:54:34 AM PDT by myknowledge
The United States will announce on Friday its plans to begin profiling US-bound passengers in a major shake-up of air travel security measures, US media said.
Under the new measures to begin this month, which will apply to US citizens as well, the level of screening of travellers will depend on how closely their personal characteristics match against intelligence on potential terrorists.
The measures will replace mandatory enhanced screening of all passengers travelling to the United States from 14 mostly Muslim nations, put into place following a failed al-Qaeda attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.
"It's much more tailored to what intelligence is telling us and what the threat is telling us, as opposed to stopping all individuals from a particular nationality," said an unnamed US official quoted by The Washington Post.
The announcement to be made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) comes after a three-month review of security protocols, said the Post, citing a senior administration official.
"It is much more surgically targeting those individuals we are concerned about and have intelligence for," the official said, according to the New York Times.
The current "no-fly" list is to remain in place under the new procedures, but supplemented by cross-referenced information that may see passengers subject to further screening even if their names are not flagged, the Wall Street Journal said.
Characteristics such as nationality, age, recently visited countries and partial names will be used alongside the "no-fly" list, the Journal said.
The move aims to avoid the intelligence failures that allowed the alleged Christmas Day bomber, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to board the Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam wearing underpants rigged with explosives, even though US intelligence had been alerted to information on him.
Fragmentary intelligence on a possible attacker - a partial name, certain physical characteristics, or nationality - would be forwarded by the DHS to airlines and foreign governments, the Los Angeles Times said, and the information used as a guide on who would be screened.
"This is not a system that can be called profiling in the traditional sense. It is intelligence-based," said the official, quoted by the New York Times.
US government guidelines prohibit authorities from singling out people on the basis of race or ethnicity, but the Christmas Day plot swiftly recharged the delicate debate surrounding racial profiling.
Sometimes we wished more Muslims would be scrutinized by racial profiling, but the Muzzies have known a solution to evading racial profiling: Use of non-Arab looking Muslims e.g. Bosniaks to penetrate airport security.
Obama and the TSA could also use profiling to target any suspected government opponents, like us.
Fascist Police State 101!
Bitter clingers beware.
Can anyone imagine if GWB had instituted this? THe outcry would ring from sea to shining sea.
Frankly, I don’t believe this.
Does this mean Hussein Obama will be flagged?
[above misspelling(s) not mine]
I seriously doubt they ever had enhanced screenings for people from mostly Muslim nations.
“This is not a system that can be called profiling in the traditional sense. It is intelligence-based,” said the official, quoted by the New York Times.
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Funny. Are they admitting they were wrong and are looking for a figleaf, now that Obama would be totally $#(@) if there was a major terrorist attack that succeeded?
And scary that I assume the NYT is an official spokesman for the liberals that now control the US government.
No, because he is a frontman for the globalist elite, and they want Christians and government opponents red-flagged.
Fascist Police State 101!
I trust absolutely nothing this Regime does.
The media would KILL a Republican for this.
All the billions spent on high tech and personnel, and now a little bit of common sense?
Obama trying to be an outright Communist should not be the model. Only a Republican can be used to impose communism.
Now we know why Julie Nixon Eisenhower made her 2008 endorsement.
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