Activists suspect bias by screeners

Religious, minority and civil rights activists are asking Homeland Security officials to screen their own airport screeners using video cameras to check whether passengers are being subjected to bias or profiling.

“We believe such controls are critical to ensuring that our nation’s [screeners] are focused squarely on security threats and not distracted by any personal bias,” the organizations said in a letter this week to Kip Hawley, director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The letter was signed by representatives of several groups including the Sikh Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian American Justice Center, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The groups said policy changes give transportation security officers more discretion to pull aside passengers for additional screening, resulting in “an unchecked ability to engage in racial, religious, ethnic, or national origin profiling of air travelers.”

One of the policies they targeted was the “screening passengers by observation techniques,” a program using behavior to identify high-risk passengers. They also cited the discretionary ban on lighters and more extensive screening of passengers wearing bulky clothing.

The groups proposed a quarterly video audit of 10 airports chosen at random. An auditor would collect data “on the perceived race, religion, ethnicity and national origin of each passenger who is asked to submit to additional screening beyond the metal detector.”

TSA officials have consistently said that screeners do not profile or select passengers for additional screening based on perceived race or religion.

“Profiling is not acceptable and it is plainly not good for security,” TSA spokesman Christopher White said.

“One need look no further than Timothy McVeigh, Jose Padilla, or recent events in Iraq or Sri Lanka to know there is no one face of terrorism,” he said. “That’s why we don’t engage in any way, shape or form of profiling.”

Mr. White said TSA officers don’t screen for lighters anymore and that passengers wearing any kind of bulky clothing, including bluejeans and sweatshirts, may be subjected to additional screening.

“For individuals in bulky clothing, the natural contour of the body is not visible and we may conduct additional screening simply to determine if there are items hidden underneath,” Mr. White said.

Neha Singh, advocacy director for the Sikh Coalition, said screeners stationed at the San Francisco International Airport have “a reputation of pulling aside all Sikh travelers who wear turbans, though this is in direct contradiction to the TSA policy.”

“It’s not their policy that profiles; it’s their people who may be profiling,” Mrs. Singh said.

Sikhism comes from the Punjab region in India. The religion mandates followers to cover their heads with turbans or scarves.

Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, said “all Americans should be able to travel safely and freely, regardless of the way they look.”

The civil rights and minority groups said that with nearly 50,000 screeners nationwide, “it is unrealistic to believe that a policy created in Washington is being implemented flawlessly on the ground.”

The groups said that “broad individual discretion allotted to screeners also allows them to bring individual biases to the screening process.”

“We appreciate that this discretion makes it more difficult for terrorists to understand the security calculus in place at airports. However, the broad individual discretion allotted to screeners also allows them to bring individual biases to the screening process, which may result in some communities being selected for a second screening at disproportionate rates,” the groups said.