With news that the failed Nigerian underwear bomber was an actual real threat, the international community is rumbling in rapid reactions. My plans of going to South Asia this next month went awry when just a couple of weeks ago India suddenly changed their visa regulations; all people holding a tourist visa to India now need to wait two months before re-entry, leaving many tourists who use India as a home base to travel around South Asia in flux. The reasoning given? American Headley’s support in the Mumbai bombing. (FYI, rules changing daily on this, so keep updated if you will be traveling soon).
In addition to heightened visa security, the world is experiencing heightened airport security as well.
TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening. The directive also increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on U.S. bound international flights.[tsa]
I haven’t had to travel on an airline yet but have been following tweets of my world traveling friends and it seems that there is no consistency to airport security. I am quickly reminded of how in the post 9/11 backlash racial profiling at airports were rampant and I needed to have a special phone call made each and every time I flew because I had the classic Muslim last name. It seems like the new TSA regulations are setting up racial profiling to be acceptable all over again.
According to information currently known about the new standards, all passengers traveling to the United States from 14 countries will be subject to heightened security screenings, including full-body pat-downs and luggage searches. These countries include Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
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The new standards will undoubtedly lead to the targeting of passengers from Muslim-majority countries. Rather than developing more effective policies that focus on behavior, the new standards categorically target individuals for additional scrutiny based upon ethnicity, religion, and country of origin. Moreover, the measures promote existing misperceptions about these communities as threats to security and harm the U.S. government’s reputation, both domestically and abroad, towards ensuring civil rights and equality.[saalt]
The above two paras is a statement that was released this week and endorsed by a bevy of South Asian organizations such as Chhaya CDC, Coney Island Avenue Project, The Sikh Coalition, and South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).
I am also in complete support of the statement that was released. Nothing is going to be safer by the arbitrary special inspection of people from brown countries. It will only help to facilitate the profiling of brown people.
What irritates me even more is that what happened on Flight 253 would have been preventable if the US Embassy in Nigeria would have followed up on the father’s warning. Obama is nominating a head to the TSA now, but it taking him EIGHT months to nominate someone is more problematic to our airline security than any amount of Muslims flying. Though I realize racial profiling is the knee jerk reaction to a situation like the one on Christmas Day, I hope the South Asian community can signal to the White House and the international security people that what is really needed is better inter-governmental security communication and a real need for timely leadership. Flying while brown racial profiling is not the solution.
Past Posts: Flying While Brown
“Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.” – Benjamin Franklin
take it up with uncle ben, not me.
According to information currently known about the new standards, all passengers traveling to the United States from 14 countries will be subject to heightened security screenings, including full-body pat-downs and luggage searches. These countries include Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
I wonder if anybody can figure out what make Cuba different from the other countries on the list.
And isn’t it special that the guy whom he has nominated for the TSA got into trouble for a major violation of privacy and misuse of government databases (inexplicably, he got away then with a slap on the wrist), and then lied to Congress when asked about it? Shows you how much the administration weighs concerns about privacy, let alone profiling.
The problem with the statement in question, as I see it, is that it lumps “country of origin” together with: “ethnicity”, “religion” and “community”.
Those countries are not on the list because of their “brown-ness”. If that were the case then what about Mexico or Brazil?
The two paragraph statement would be the beginning of a nice form letter…
You mean, could the much-hated Indians use their good connections?
I agree with the above poster about the conflation of color and religion in the post. It is flying while Muslim that is a problem, not brown. Appeal to the Muslim Council to get in touch with the White House.
“You can’t catch terrorists by casting a broad net. You catch terrorists with good police work. You look at networks, suspicious behavior, clues. Ignoring the desperate plea of a father who goes to the CIA with information about his son being radicalized in Yemen, but then patting down 170 million Nigerians ever after, is brain dead.” – Informed Comment
Guarantee you that the next bomber is not from one of the 14 countries on this list.
Platonicus, Mexico and Brazil are not majority Muslim countries, neither do they contain many folks who fit the brown, Muslim terrorist profile. Cuba is merely on the list because it’s an embargoed country anyway.
Conflation:
a) The people who work for TSA can’t tell brown people apart. They don’t know if Maitri is a Hindu or Muslim name, just that I look like the people in pictures they have been shown. We are all the same to them. The South Asian community has a lot at stake here.
b) Besides, just because South Asian Muslims are flying while Muslim, let’s not forget that they are South Asians and that the community has to support all within it, not some as and when they see fit.
Yes, dipshits from UK, India, Indiana etc. etc. are just as likely to blow themselves up, but that is one bold statement.
I agree with Maitri- “brown” is the issue. And internally that includes Latinos and anyone else who seems to fit the “profile.” What bothers me most about this and “random” checks is that these are done in such a public manner in a way that inspires concern and suspicion among one’s fellow travellors. + it is REALLY annoying being patted down by the TSA. But I digress. The public execution of “random” sets up a sense of unease as to just what is random and how did X catch the TSA’s eye? Was the TSA agent simply bored, was X’s hat on wrong. was y carrying a suspicious publication, did z hum something Middel Eastern souding? And then everyone either watches or averts their eyes, wondering about the person getting searched and probably praying they don’t sit next to them on the plane. Personally, I think these seraches have to be done publically because once you are in a little cubicle it’s you v the TSA agent, but I also think these “random” seraches are bull. I don;t like them done on me and it doesn’t make me feel any safer to see them done on others. It makes me feel rather pissed, and highly inclined to be difficult, rude and bitchy.
You know, ever since I stopped wearing a belt when I travel and got shoes without metal lace-holes, I haven’t had any extra attention from the TSA for the past 3 or 4 years. Maybe the pat-downs are a consequence of your sartorial choices?
i think part of the issue is that there are muslim radicals everywhere, and diaspora communities probably “punch above their weight” (e.g., londonstan). re: profiling, i’ve flown a lot since 9/11 and haven’t had an issue, except for once when the dude spent a lot of time looking through my baggage. by contrast, my younger siblings (who are teenagers) can never check via the automated kiosk. so there’s an element of randomness that’s totally opaque to me.
The TSA definitely knows their Muslim from their Hindu, because they have a database of Muslim names. If they don’t know, that is a problem with educating them about the difference, not South Asians as a whole “signaling the White House” about traveling brown.
I don’t see why South Asians as a whole should help alleviate Muslims’ TSA problems, because the problem is not with being South Asian, but with being Muslim, which includes all kinds of nationalities. So the proper forum for appeal is the broader group, namely Muslim representatives.
India and Bangladesh and Srilanka are not on the list of the 14 countries, Pakistan is on the list for obvious reasons. Why would the other countries want to support Pakistan, and risk getting identified with the craziness they produce?
It is flying while Muslim that is a problem, not brown.
we’re talking a union, not an intersection. if you dress more-muzzie-than-thou you’re going to potentially be subject to profiling, even if you’re a swede, chinese or black african (i.e., !brown). i actually had a friend of mine who is a white texan who grew a big john-walker-lindh beard who started getting suspicious looks if he dressed down in pajamas-like-stuff (he’s a hipster, dresses weird sometimes) because people obviously though he was muslim. his light brown hair and blue eyes didn’t matter. and of course, if you’re brown-skinned you can dress in a jacket & tie and might be subject to profiling.
the point is separating race & religion probably doesn’t get to the heart of the matter, as it is a promiscuous conflation and overlap which is at work here.
and it’s not like this is a “dumb white american” issue. it’s still hard to get across to my DBD relatives and acquaintances that my significant other isn’t christian, she’s an atheist, because they code white = christian (i.e., “are you guys going to have a christian wedding?” “no, she’s not christian.” “but she’s white”).
Umm… This? Kamal Haasan? Although, in his case, I am sympathetic to extreme measures if they were deployed in service of stopping the scourge to humanity that was Dasavatharam.
So, how would the new measures have stopped Richard Reid again? Is there a subclause about cavity searching Jamaican origin Brits I missed?
The promiscuity is in the mind of some of the TSA employees, and sure, we can’t do much about it. (Though if I had a few million dollars to spare, I would’ve taken out an ad on major papers pointing out the difference between Muslim south Asians and others. Like the Sikhs did a while ago.)
This doesn’t mean south Asians should all band together and contribute to further spreading the promiscuity, rallying to the support of south Asian Muslims would only make things worse for everyone.
Consider this analogy: some westerners who go to India, mostly from Britain, are paedophiles. So are some Arabs. Now assume India has a screening process to find paedophiles, say looking through the luggage of people with foreign passports. Most of the people who get screened are whites. Now, someone writes a blog post about “travelling in India while white”, and suggest that the OECD should pressure India to stop searching people from their countries. Do you think the OECD would be interested? Any such plea by the OECD would be interpreted as oblique support for paedophiles, and no one in their right mind would even think of that. People not from the UK would particularly say no, because they don’t want to be identified with the UK folks, who have a reputation for being weird.
i’m not sure about anything else…. but i know that of the countries listed, there is only one brown one– Pakistan.
What chocoholic said–I mean, you’ve got whites (Lebanon), blacks (Somalia, Nigeria), etc. on this list–how is this a desi issue? No TSA person has ever “confused” my name for a Muslim one.
I can think of 166, 036, 895 reasons why this is a desi issue.
conflation, Consider the analogy: While the Indians are busy screening the Arabs and UK whites, hundreds of nonwhite Americans can tapdance their way through customs wearing their Strictly 4 my NAMBLAz t-shirts.
Mr. X, everybody knows only whites wear NAMBLA T-shirts.
Sure, but that is a different point — it is an observation about the screen, and what it can catch.
I was talking about what browns/whites should do, given a screen that catches them a lot, as it tries to isolate some weirdos who happen to be mostly brown/white. All the browns/whites getting together and making a big noise is not the answer, as it will only create/reinforce the stereotype of all browns/whites being weirdos. It is a counterproductive proposal.
You can talk about more optimised screens, for instance there is a lot of talk now about the way Israel interviews passengers quickly, and how they haven’t had any issues all these years, even though they are targeted more than the US. But that is a wider discussion, and not strictly a Desi one. Of course, if they have a better and focused screen, it would help Desis more than others. So maybe we should think of how we could help make the screen settle on just the weirdos, and ignore others. Instead of exhortations to rise up and signal the white house.
I’ve been a very active traveller the past seven years, primarily domestic, and haven’t had one problem yet. Flew on Christmas day and a few days back, didn’t see any changes/issues either. My former boss had a last name “Smith” and first name as common as they come as well was on the “watch list”. Michael Yon, a prominent journalist, was recently handcuffed by the customs and border protection folks for not answering how much income he made when arriving in the United States.
Either way, the overall professionalism shown by some personnel from certain agencies is lacking. None of the “new” measures the various countries or airlines are instituting will have any real measurable impact on preventing attacks other than simply making life harder for the regular folks brown or otherwise. Dude’s father tells the government his son is up to no good, yet that somehow gets lost in bureaucratic bullshit.
Here’s how the Israel’s set-up is… Either way, if anyone is pro/con Israel, I hope they leave it out of the thread. The reason I referenced this article is to point out we still haven’t reached a point where we’ve trained the system to look for behavioural clues and addressed logistics at airports to ensure risk to any other soft target at airports (like screening areas) is minimised.
Another good reason for us desis to use Fair and Lovely. Of course, I’ve never needed it because I am naturally light-skinned and have immaculate Caucasian features. Not that there’s anything wrong with being otherwise.
So.. DOMA was signed by Clinton, the Stupak amendment featuring the biggest expansion of Federal intrusion into abortion might be approved by Obama, and Obama has also finally opened the door to sanctioned racial profiling as a policy in the US. God, no wonder we need someone as terrible as a Bush to make us realize why minorities are supposed to like the Dems better in power.
Another good reason for us desis to use Fair and Lovely
isn’t in the lighter skinned ‘swarthy’ north indians who would be most subject to racial profiling? in contrast, very dark skinned south asians look more like blacks than arabs.
anyway, the biggest issue seems to be sikhs, not muslims. pointing to the importance of dress. my parents are practicing brown muslims but they don’t “dress muslim,” and have admitted to their bangladeshi relatives that it was really their sikh acquaintances who got the most crap after 9/11.
isn’t in the lighter skinned ‘swarthy’ north indians who would be most subject to racial profiling?
my comment pointing to the fact that “fair and lovely” for an indian (light brown) is a typical “dark arab terrorist” color for populations which really are fair and lovely :=)
I’m hardly swarthy, razib. And it’s true that I’m so fair and Caucasian looking it must be a crime.
Does anyone in the LA area want to join me tomorrow for a no pants ride on the Metro? (The tie in to the post, I rode the LA Metro the other day, no baggage just a pair of ridiculously skinny jeans which would barely keep any secrets (if u catch my drift and a thin v neck and the police officers still had the nerve to pull me aside.)
http://tiny.cc/nopants