CHICAGO — The Transportation Security Administration on April 2 reversed an airport security measure targeting international passengers from 14 countries, prompting speculation about the underlying cause of the policy change.
Following the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253 on Christmas Day by 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the TSA implemented enhanced screening for passengers arriving from Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, and Cuba.
The new security protocols, which now apply to all inbound passengers traveling to the U.S., “supersede the emergency measures put in place immediately following the attempted terrorist attack on Dec. 25, 2009,” according to the TSA press release.
But was country-specific screening eliminated because it is ineffective, or did implications of racial and religious profiling prompt the administration to abandon the policy?
Some U.S.-based Islamic organizations pressured the Obama administration to repeal the policy, claiming the additional screenings unfairly singled out travelers from predominantly Muslim countries. These advocacy groups lend equal weight to national origin, ethnicity and religion, and consider any form of selective treatment based on those criteria a breach of civil liberties.
Dr. William Reno, a specialist in African politics at Northwestern University, believes that TSA policy directives like this engender negative sentiment toward the U.S. in the countries they single out.
“In places like Sudan and Somalia…people there are very sensitive to any U.S. policy that affects their country,” Reno said. “Actions like the TSA screening become very big news overseas. It fits a narrative that extremists prefer, and it may be that…Washington weighed the benefits with the real costs and decided that it was best to repeal.”
Beyond the promise of equal screening for all, the TSA’s press release can be construed as intentionally vague. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano bats around phrases like “real-time, threat-based intelligence” and “layers of security, both seen and unseen”, but never approaches any kind of concrete new direction for the TSA.
Opponents of the Christmas Day policy might regard this dearth of newness as a political maneuver, a bid to scuttle an unpopular, knee-jerk decision in the guise of a fresh direction. But the possibility also exists that country-specific screening simply does not work.
According to Dr. John Williams, co-author of “Soldiers, Society, and National Security and U.S. National Security: Policymakers, Processes, and Politics”, a concern for political correctness was not the primary driver behind the policy change.
“If it was profiling based on ethnicity per se, that would be a problem,” Williams said. “But regarding people from highly problematic countries and giving them special attention, I don’t think that is a problem politically – it’s inefficient, that’s the problem. You have to find something more effective…than screening everyone from those countries.”
Williams references Israel’s method of behavioral profiling as a potentially effective substitute, but cautions that screening under almost any circumstance is a form of profiling, including the “new, enhanced…and random screening measures” outlined by the TSA.
Abdulmutallab was charged Jan. 6 in a six-count criminal indictment in the Eastern District of Michigan for his alleged role in the Christmas Day bombing, and faces life in prison if convicted, according to a Justice Department announcement.
