Muslims face extra checks in new travel crackdown

Muslims face extra checks in new travel crackdown By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

THE Government is discussing with airport operators plans to introduce a screening system that allows security staff to focus on those passengers who pose the greatest risk.

The passenger-profiling technique involves selecting people who are behaving suspiciously, have an unusual travel pattern or, most controversially, have a certain ethnic or religious background.

The system would be much more sophisticated than simply picking out young men of Asian appearance. But it would cause outrage in the Muslim community because its members would be far more likely to be selected for extra checks.

Officials at the Department for Transport (DfT) have discussed the practicalities of introducing such a system with airport operators, including BAA. They believe that it would be more effective at identifying potential terrorists than the existing random searches.

They also say that it would greatly reduce queues at secur-ity gates, which caused lengthy delays at London airports yesterday for the fifth day running. Heathrow and Gatwick were worst affected, cancelling 69 and 27 flights respectively. BAA gave warning yesterday that the disruption would continue for the rest of the week.

Passengers are now allowed to take one small piece of hand luggage on board but security staff are still having to search 50 per cent of travellers. Airports have also been ordered to search twice as many hand luggage items as a week ago.

BAA was criticised yesterday for failing to commit itself to recruiting more security staff and for claiming that its existing 6,000 staff at seven airports would be able to handle the extra searches. Tony Douglas, the chief executive of Heathrow, said that X-ray screening of hand luggage would be much faster under the new rules on size and contents, leaving staff free to carry out more searches.

The new measures, which include a ban on taking any liquids through checkpoints, are expected to remain in place for months. A DfT source said it was difficult to see how the restrictions could be relaxed if terrorists now had the capabil-ity to make liquid bombs.

The DfT has been considering passenger profiling for a year but, until last week, the disadvantages were thought to outweigh the advantages. A senior aviation industry source said: “The DfT is ultra-sensitive about this and won’t say anything publicly because of political concerns about being accused of racial stereotyping.”

Three days before last week’s arrests, the highest-ranking Muslim police officer in Britain gave warning that profiling techniques based on physical appearance were already causing anger and mistrust among young Muslims. Tarique Ghaffur, an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said: “We must think long and hard about the causal factors of anger and resentment.

“There is a very real danger that the counter-terrorism label is also being used by other law-enforcement agencies to the effect that there is a real risk of criminalising minority communities.”

Sir Rod Eddington, former chief executive of British Airways, criticised the random nature of security searches. He said that it was irrational to subject a 75-year-old grandmother to the same checks as a 25-year-old man who had just paid for his ticket with cash.

Philip Baum, an aviation security consultant, said that profiling should focus on ruling out people who obviously posed no risk rather than picking out Asian or Arabs.

A DfT spokesman refused to make any comment or answer any questions on profiling.

British Airways plans to cancel forty short-haul and four long-haul flights from Heathrow today as well as eleven domestic flights from Gatwick. Other airlines expect to operate near-normal schedules.

All airports will allow passengers to carry one small piece of hand luggage, but no liquids are allowed through the security search point other than prescribed medicines and baby food.

This entire screening debate is laughable.

We are dealing with insane individuals who are committed to ONE thing - the murder of infidels.

To borrow a line from "Terminator" - they can be reasoned with. They can't be bargained with. They do not feel pain or remorse or pity. And they absolutely will not stop - ever. Until you are dead.

Mad dogs are shot without question. Why not the radical Islamic facists?

The day is coming when the terrorists will actually succeed in pulling off an attack that kills 10,000 or more citizens. Much more if they ever acquire nuclear technology. It will be devastating and sickening. MAYBE after that strike this country will take off the kid gloves and deal with this issue in a permanent manner.

We will quit looking the other way; we will cease settling for a half-baked PC remedy; we will not appease the terrorist sympathizers (A.N.S.W.E.R., ACLU, CAIR, liberal think tanks in Berkeley and Boston, 80% of the talk show hosts and mainstream media), we will not petition the UN to author yet another resolution – WE WILL RESPOND WITH WAR.

The USA will actually provide a response that will be forever seared in the psyche of ALL the worlds’ citizens. Ask Japan about it. The object lesson will be simple – don’t mess with us again. Ever.

Part of the problem is even under Bush many citizens of the world don’t believe he has the guts to order the final solution. America is too civilized, too insistent on playing by the rules, just too damn goody two shoes about this terrorism thing.

Okay, the towers went down and 3,000 people died. The Euro-weenies, liberals, and UN acknowledge that wasn't very nice, BUT quickly point out it was only 19 disgruntled Muslims. So why punish an entire region for the actions of a few demented individuals? America deserved it anyway! Give peace and diplomacy a real chance.

The short answer is to provide an example to the rest of the world. The long answer is a bit more complex and entails issues like urging diplomacy on one hand while supporting the terrorist cause on the other hand. It’s about choosing sides. It’s about condemning the 1.8m radical Islamic fundamentalists that want to kill all infidels. It is about the President honoring the ONE promise he made that really counts – “I WILL PROTECT, DEFEND, AND PRESERVE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.”

So what steps should this country take?

1. Immediately deport all Muslims who are not in this country on a valid visa.
2. Once the current visa expires then those Muslims must leave as well.
3. Cease immediately future issuances of visas to any individual from an Arabic country. The goal is to keep Muslims out. Not even tourist/visitor visas.
4. The Muslims who have become U.S. citizens must be interrogated and considered on a case-by-case basis.
If this seems overly harsh, consider this – would this country tolerate Communists or Nazis openly preaching about taking over and killing all “infidels”?
5. The PC method of security screening MUST stop. Muslim men 18-45 years old have perpetrated 96% of the terrorist attacks on the USA (I can almost hear the liberals screaming “what about Timothy McVeigh?”). Newsflash – he is dead. Back among the living, the Muslim men have been striking the USA since 1979. At what point do they become SUSPECTS instead of PROFILED? It is not racist; it is reality. The U.S. policy should be Muslim Arabic persons MUST undergo intensive security checks at airports, train stations, etc. Maybe expand it to public places such as ballparks, malls, theatres, etc. If “random” checks of other races must be done, continue to do so. But ALL Arabic/Muslims are given the full treatment (luggage search, pat down, questions, etc.) Let THEM spend the extra 2-3 hours getting on the aircraft.
6. Or arrange one flight each day for their use. They fly by themselves. Put four military folks right up near the pilot cockpit armed with machine guns to insure protection.
7. Or, better yet, ban them from commercial transportation – trains, boats, and aircraft. The lone exception is a one-way ticket leaving the USA on a foreign airline (British Airways, etc.).
8. Give serious consideration to opening up detention camps for Muslims in the USA. There is a precedent for this action. FDR did it to the Japanese in WWII. Lincoln also did it during the Civil War to Confederate soldiers. You do what needs to be done to insure survival.
9. Open up more “Gitmo” level prisons to house those individuals that refuse to be deported or are caught hiding with friends or are found that are plotting terror attacks.
10. Broaden the FISA parameters and be very vocal about it. This practice of tapping phone calls, electronic bank transactions, and emails that has an overseas address/destination helped prevent the London aircraft bombing plot (thus far!).
11. Encourage all phone companies to continue providing those call logs to Homeland Security.
12. Strengthen the Patriot Act by weeding out and terminating those employees within the U.S. government who are Clinton Kool-Aid drinkers and subvert the program at every opportunity. It was under Clinton’s watch the intelligence budgets were slashed and walls built up internally to prevent the critical sharing of information between the CIA, FBI, etc. Some of those staffers still work in the bowels of Homeland Security. Root ‘em out.
13. Bush should go on American TV and fully review the above three points. He should finish by challenging the Congress to impeach him for carrying out his sworn duty. He should not run from or ignore their BS threat – he should CALL THEIR BLUFF!
14. The President should go on worldwide television and explain the basics:
a) Any future strike on America or its interests abroad that is the work of Muslim terrorists will result in a warning response from the USA. This includes kidnapping of American citizens, attacks on American businesses or American military. (Warning response is based on how hard the strike on America was. It might be lining up and shooting the occupants of Gitmo, obliterating Mecca and Medina, or using a tactical nuke on Beirut or Damascus.)
b) All Mideast nations have 7 days after the warning response to provide all possible assistance and critical intelligence about who made the strike on America and where they are, as well as any financial or government supporters. Any people who are directly responsible that a nation captures can be handed over to the nearest U.S. Embassy.
c) Failure to provide requested intelligence will warrant a second, more severe response from the USA. (Elimination of a given area – city or maybe country - by nuclear force)
d) A final 3-day period is then allowed for the requested intelligence.
e) If the evidence shows a given country was in any way supporting the terrorist strike, America will not wait until the end of the 7 or 3-day period for immediate retaliation.
f) Failing to provide the requested information will result in the final response. (Eliminating the Muslim problem in the Mideast).

Radical situations require radical solutions.

I doubt the USA would have to go beyond the 2nd step. Quality leads and intelligence on the perpetrators would POUR in.

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