TSA policies spur student debate

After the Transportation Security Administration tightened security measures following the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day, some students of color at the University of Minnesota are expecting a more difficult time on international flights.
TSA tightened security measures for inbound flights to the United States from 14 countries with “terrorism problems” and will administer increased screening of citizens from those countries following the attempted attack Dec. 25 by a Nigerian man.
Fuad Hannon, president of the Al-Madinah Cultural Center — a diverse University of Minnesota student group with a large Muslim population — plans to visit Syria, Palestine and Jordan this summer and said he has problems with the new policies. He also expects to have problems traveling.
“It’s unfortunate that it has come to this, and the profiling is never a good thing,” Hannon said. “It’s going to have a lot of repercussions on ordinary Muslims trying to travel and live their lives.”
TSA policy targets people traveling from or through 10 “countries of interest,” including Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen, as well as four countries that are known to sponsor terrorism, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, according to the TSA.
Some say the benefits of the new security policies may outweigh the costs.
“It’s not that all people [of those nations] are going to or want to hurt us,” Juliana
Feldhacker, president of College Republicans at the University, said. “It’s just that if that tends to be the trend, then you should be using your resources wisely and looking at the people that are most likely to fit that description.”
For Aamir Mansoor, president of the University’s Pakistani Student Association, the policies don’t feel new.
“I always have ‘random’ security pat downs, but I say ‘random’ in quotes,” said Mansoor. “It’s interesting to me when I talk to my friends, because it always seems friends of certain backgrounds have these experiences more so than others.”
Mansoor said he thinks TSA should take a closer look at more than just those 14 nations.
“Considering the resources our government has, you would think that they would have a filter better than 14 nations to discriminate against,” Mansoor said. “It’s a very clear form of discrimination based on one’s ethnicity; it’s racial profiling in its most basic form,” Mansoor said.
Hannon said that if the screening can be done in a moral and ethical way while keeping in mind the Muslim religion’s beliefs, he would support the new policies.
“If it can save an innocent life, that would be hard to argue with saving a catastrophe from happening,” Hannon said.