US resorts to racial profiling again

The failed actions of misguided militant Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab will have severe repercussions on all air travellers visiting the United States. Abdul Mutallab botched a bombing attempt on a flight between Amsterdam and Detroit on Christmas Day, an attempt that was made possible through severe lapses in security screening measures at airports in Lagos and Schipol.

As well as conducting an inquisition into how Abdul Mutallab slipped through screening measures, authorities in the US have reacted in a knee-jerk manner, tarring all with the same brush.

Under strict new security guidelines, all air passengers bound for any US destination will be subjected to extra, random screening measures. All too often in the past, these random screening measures are predicated upon xenophobia and racial profiling.

But authorities have gone further: Any passenger from 14 countries will be automatically subjected to full-body pat downs. Passengers from Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Somalia are now lumped into the same grouping as nationals from Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, whose governments are listed by the US as "state sponsors of terrorism".

At present, all air passengers are supposedly screened for weapons and bombs. The new regulations, approved by the airlines themselves, were seemingly more acceptable than a blanket imposition on all travellers, regardless of nationality.

This blacklist of 14 targets primarily people from Muslim nations. On that basis alone, it is xenophobia and must be rejected by all right-thinking peoples.

Racial profiling is culturally repugnant and a histrionic reaction to the actions of a few. Instead of swallowing the cost of better scanners for the safety of all, the US has reverted to racial profiling.