CAIR condemns U.S. airport anti-terrorism measures

The Council on American Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, began 2010 by complaining about new security measures being enforced at U.S. airports by Transportation Security Administration security officers. The CAIR leadership released a statement that claims the TSA's airport security directives amount to the profiling of Muslims.

"Under these new guidelines, almost every American Muslim who travels to see family or friends or goes on pilgrimage to Mecca will automatically be singled out for special security checks -- that's profiling," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.

"While singling out travelers based on religion and national origin may make some people feel safer, it only serves to alienate and stigmatize Muslims and does nothing to improve airline security," he said.

"We all support effective security measures that will protect the traveling public from an attack such as that attempted on Christmas Day," added Awad. "But knee-jerk policies will not address this serious challenge to public safety."

However, security experts believe that the measures are reasonable and necessary in order to enhance airport and airline protection and safety.

"Look, I don't buy it. The fact is, what I say is do smart screening. Ethnicity is one of the factors that should be included in the profile. After all, what is profiling? You're extrapolating the common characteristics of the terrorist attacks. 100% of all the terrorist attacks against the United States last year were carried out by Muslim jihadists. So, if that's the one common denominator, let's include that in the mix. That at airports would trigger a secondary inspection in which case the bomber on Christmas Day this year, maybe have they found the bomb," said the respected terrorism expert Steven Emerson, founder and director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

"Are you going to inspect 98 year old ladies from Sweden in wheelchairs because we're trying to distribute the risk among 300 million Americans when the risk category is really spread 99 to 1 million people? No I don't buy it. Let's be smart about this," added Emerson, who is a consultant for several media and law enforcement organizations.

Israeli security agents and police have used this method for screening people at airports and security checkpoints for years with much success.

In a commentary distributed Monday by CAIR challenging calls for profiling, Awad suggested alternatives to faith-based security checks: "First look at behavior, not at faith or skin color. Then spend what it takes to obtain more bomb-sniffing dogs, to install more sophisticated bomb-detection equipment and to train security personnel in identifying the behavior of real terror suspects."

But law enforcement officials and security professionals believe that to treat everyone equally is like grade school discipline.

"It's ridiculous. Because a few extremists who are Muslims perpetrate terrorist attacks on planes, everyone must be inconvenienced and harassed? That's like elementary school when a student misbehaves and the teacher punishes the entire class by keeping them all after school," said former intelligence officer and NYPD detective Sid Frances.

"The Israeli security people are trained to use profiling -- they also look at body language, listen to voice patterns, check eye contact and other facial indicators of deception," said Frances.

In CAIR's press statement,  Awad cited an editorial published today by the San Diego Union-Tribune, which states in part:

"But aside from the moral objections, as we've seen, profiling by characteristic isn't very efficient. The minute U.S. officials put out the word that they're not scrutinizing people with blond hair and blue eyes is the minute that al-Qaeda starts recruiting people with blond hair and blue eyes. Would looking for Arab-Americans have turned up a passenger that resembled 'American Taliban' fighter John Walker Lindh? Would applying extra scrutiny to people with foreign-sounding names have kept would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid off a plane?"

Counterterrorism experts believe that part of the professionalization process is the training of airport security staff in what's been called psychological profiling or behavioral analysis or a number of other terms that all amount to the same thing -- effectively screening out potential terrorists.

This is a welcomed program by those in law enforcement who've said for years that psychological profiling should be used by airport security staff. While representing the staff and membership of the National Association of Chiefs of Police at lectures or during media interviews, this writer often discusses the need for upgrading the training of airport security staff with part of that upgrade to include psychological profiling.

Most police officers and investigators are familiar with the concept since it's used during the interrogation and interview process to detect deception on the part of the subject. Without going into too much detail, interrogators or interviewers, while questioning a subject about the matter at hand, are observing body language, eye contact, breathing, physical characteristics such as dry mouth or profuse perspiration, and other criteria.

According to TSA officials, security officers at major airports across the country will be trained to use "casual conversation" to flush out possible terrorists. They will first teach officers what suspicious behaviors to look for in travelers. These can include nervousness, wearing a big coat in the summer or reluctance to make eye contact with law enforcement. Then, the officers carry on a supposedly casual conversation with passengers in hopes of spotting possible terrorists or to determine whether further scrutiny of a passenger is required.

Without fanfare, these techniques are being employed at several major airports, including those in Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Miami and Houston. Again, psychological profiling -- or, as the TSA calls it, behavior detection -- is a common practice among police officers. Customs agents, who screen arriving passengers, also use the process when they suspect a passenger needs a more detailed interview. This behavior detection program will be put in place at airport security checkpoints nationwide. It adds a psychological dimension to the screening process.