Racial Profiling

New U.S. airport security measures mark the end of broad national and racial profiling in favor of intelligence-based screening criteria. “Travellers will be picked out according to how closely they match intelligence on potential terrorist threats. A senior administration official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the new system would require travellers who match information about terrorism suspects, such as a physical description, partial name or travel pattern, to undergo additional screening. ‘So it’s much more tailored to what the intel is telling us, what the threat is telling us, as opposed to stopping all individuals of a particular nationality or all individuals using a particular passport,’ the official said. He described the measures being scrapped as a ‘blunt-force instrument’. The names of terrorism suspects identified by the US government will continue to be included on security watch lists and no-fly lists as a part of airline security. The new policy affects US citizens, as well as travellers coming into the United States from abroad. The measures in force since January required that passengers travelling to the US from 14 countries be subjected to especially rigorous pre-flight screening.”