http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/...screening02.html
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WASHINGTON ? The Obama administration will announce Friday a new screening system for flights to the United States under which passengers who fit an intelligence profile of potential terrorists will be searched before boarding their plane, a senior administration official said.
The procedures, which have been approved by President Obama, are aimed at preventing another attack like the one attempted by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian suspected of ties to al-Qaida who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas with a bomb hidden in his underwear, the official said.
After that attempt, the administration began mandatory screening of airline passengers from 14 high-risk countries, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.
Under the new system, passengers on flights from all countries could be subject to special screening before boarding if they have personal characteristics that match the latest intelligence information about potential attackers, the official said.
"We believe it is a much more effective system" that is "tailored to optimize our ability to interdict would-be terrorists," said the senior official, who described the plan on condition of anonymity.
Even U.S. citizens traveling to the United States from abroad would be subject to special screening if they matched certain characteristics, the official said.
Administration officials said the system would provide greater fairness than the current system. They said the new system would not amount to improper profiling because it would rely on specific and frequently updated intelligence and involve more countries than the current 14, which also include Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen.
The new plan is designed to catch terrorists about whom the United States may know bits of information, but not full names or other identifying data that would lead to their names being placed on a no-fly list.
In many cases, the United States might learn of a possible attack by someone about whom it has only fragmentary information: a partial name, nationality, certain facial features, or details about recent travel.
Such information will be forwarded to airlines and foreign governments by the Department of Homeland Security as it is received and will be used to guide them in deciding which travelers to subject to special screening, the official said.
In the case of Abdulmutallab, U.S. intelligence had received communication intercepts months before the Christmas attempt about a suspected plot involving a Nigerian, and a partial name.
The breakdown came because intelligence officials failed to match that information with a tip they received from Abdulmutallab's father that his son had joined the jihadist movement.
Because of the failure to connect the available information, Abdulmutallab's name was placed on a database of possible extremists, but not on the no-fly list, which contains about 4,000 names, or on a terrorism watch "selectee" list that contains fewer than 20,000 names.
The new system seeks to eliminate this vulnerability by ensuring that even without a name, airlines will receive information that will enable them to select passengers for additional screening, the official said.
"I like to think it would have increased our chances to stop" Abdulmutallab, the senior official said.
Even if he had been pulled aside, security screeners still would have had to detect the bomb in his underwear.
"We like to think they would have detected the IED," the official said, referring to an improvised explosive device. Techniques for detecting hidden bombs, weapons or other devices would not change under the new system.
The current practice of searching all passengers from 14 countries is inconvenient and untargeted, the official said. The new system, although it applies to many more countries, will result in "a significant reduction" in the number of passengers receiving preboarding scrutiny than the thousands currently searched each day, he said.
In some cases, decisions about who is selected for screening would be made automatically by matching the intelligence information against information in databases about passengers.
For example, if the U.S. received information about countries a potential terrorist had visited, all passengers who had visited those countries could be pulled aside, the officials said.
In other cases, the decision about who to search will rely on the discretion or vigilance of those dealing with the passengers.
U.S. officials would not describe all the categories of information that would be included under the new procedures.
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