Arab-American Activisms, Page 44

AAI Holds Hill Briefing on New TSA Screening Regulations

(L-r) Dr. James Zogby, Michael German, Jumana Musa and Amardeep Singh discuss airport screening. (Staff photo D. Hanley)

THE ARAB American Institute (AAI) held a standing-room-only Capitol Hill briefing on Jan. 11 entitled, “Targeting Needles, or Adding More Hay?” to discuss airport profiling, countries of interest, and American security. AAI President Dr. James Zogby moderated the discussion on new Transportation Security Agency (TSA) screening regulations and their impact on aviation safety, travelers, and national security.

The new TSA regulations require passengers traveling on passports from 14 countries considered either “state sponsors of terror” or “countries of interest” to be automatically subjected to enhanced screening procedures, including full body searches and luggage inspections, in addition to the normal processes at U.S. airport security checkpoints. Any passengers flying through and from those 14 nations must also submit to these additional searches on their way to the United States.

Michael German, former FBI agent and current policy counsel on national security, immigration, and privacy for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), described the new policy as a “proxy for racial profiling.” He explained why the policy is not only unconstitutional, but inefficient and counterproductive as well.

First of all, German said, the Constitution does not limit citizens’ rights, it protects rights—and limits the power of the government. Secondly, the new policy is ineffective for apprehending terrorist suspects because too much information is being collected and “none of it is being analyzed.” Finally, German asserted, the new measures are counterproductive not only because they violate American values and privacy, but also because they are simple for terrorists to bypass. The U.S. government has spent billions of dollars, and its efforts have made us no safer, German concluded.

Jumana Musa, policy director at the Rights Working Group (RWG), reinforced German’s views. The government broadly targeted a whole community after 9/11, she noted. Only one of 1,200 people detained as a result of that profiling has been prosecuted—and that prosecution was later overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct.

As a result of lawsuits in the 1990s, law enforcement began monitoring suspicious behavior with regard to drug trafficking instead of profiling based on race. They searched fewer people but arrested more suspects when they watched behavior. Because terrorists will vary the kind of operative they use if they know travelers are being profiled, it’s much more effective to scrutinize behavior (for example, a one-way ticket or no baggage on a flight to Detroit in the dead of winter).

Amardeep Singh, co-founder of the Sikh Coalition, reported that despite what officials are saying, a system of racial profiling has been in effect long before these new measures were enacted. Sikhs are singled out for secondary screening at airports 100 percent of the time, Singh stated. Singh was alarmed, first and foremost, that “what was once a de facto system is now a de jure system.

Singh pointed out a clear flaw in the new system: “if you list 14 countries, terrorists will go to country number 15.” By spelling out the policy, he argued, the TSA gives a “profile” for terrorists to avoid.

Finally, Singh made three recommendations to TSA:

1. Stop profiling;
2. The Homeland Security inspector general should conduct an audit to ensure the anti-profiling policies in place are being implemented;
3. TSA should be designated as a law enforcement agency in the End Racial Profiling Act, a bill that prohibits law enforcement from profiling based on ethnicity, religion, national origin or race.

The panelists agreed that the terror watch lists system is broken. There are so many names, and a huge error rate: known terrorists aren’t on the lists and people who clear their names are not removed. The system creates “false positives,” Singh noted. “How many fire alarms did you pass on your way to this room today?” he asked. What if someone triggered each alarm? Imagine answering thousands of false alarms a day!

Dr. Zogby recounted two stories to illustrate the high human costs of profiling regulations. He described a dear friend from Saudi Arabia who recently canceled a trip to the United States because “he just could not face the ordeal.” The people Americans need to have relationships with will choose not to come, Dr. Zogby warned. He also warned that profiling will fuel bigotry inside the U.S. What does it say to other children when one Arab or Muslim classmate is pulled aside for extra searches at every stop on a school trip? The experts agreed: “profiling doesn’t work.”

—Delinda C. Hanley