Just before Christmas 2009, Aramica published an article about a leaked document from the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which revealed the TSA's secret policy of singling out nationals from 12 different countries for extra security screening at U.S. airports.

Ten of the countries listed on the document, dated May 2008, were Muslim countries; six of them Arab. The two non-Muslim/Arab countries were North Korea and Cuba.

A spokeswoman for the TSA is quoted telling Aramica (see issue 151, page 4) that she was not free to discuss the policy which was "not meant to be public." She declined to say whether the policy remained active.

Surprisingly, Arab- and Muslim-American civil rights groups were silent on the issue.

As the article reported, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was not challenging the TSA's policy because it "doesn't single out Arabs and Muslims in general," according to the group's spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper.

Hooper resisted calling the policy a form of Muslim profiling, despite being pressed by the reporter that screening people from 10 Muslim countries amounted to exactly that.

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that neither the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) nor the Arab American Institute (AAI) responded to requests for comment.

Then on Christmas Day, a week after the article was published, everything suddenly changed.

Prompted by the foiled suicide bombing of Flight 253 to Detroit, allegedly by a Nigerian man, the TSA announced on January 3 a 'new' directive of "enhanced screening measures."

The measures would apply to "every individual flying into the United States from anywhere in the world who holds a passport issued by or is traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest," according to a statement on the TSA's website.

Mmm…Sound familiar? It should. It's basically the same policy that just weeks earlier was "not meant to be public." (Nigeria and Pakistan have been added to the list, and the policy now includes those passing through the countries of interest.)

But this time, CAIR, the ADC and the AAI (among other civil rights groups) responded to the "new" directive with a flurry of outraged press releases.

CAIR director Nihad Awad released a statement which read in part:

"Under these new guidelines, almost every American Muslim who travels […] will automatically be singled out for special security checks – that's profiling."

The ADC drew up a letter for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, expressing their concern over "the new TSA standards which allow for ethnic and national origin profiling."

So, why did the TSA suddenly decide to announce as new a policy that used to be a secret? And why did Arab and Muslim civil rights groups only protest it when it hit the national headlines? If the policy is so objectionable, why didn't they come out and say so when asked by Aramica?

We've drawn two, equally dismal, conclusions:

a) The TSA offered up the screening policy to appease a fearful public and show its sure-footedness after the Christmas Day near-disaster. Nothing was really any different, but at least the public would feel that the TSA is in control.

b) It seems that Arab-American media do not have much credibility or sway with Arab and Muslim civil rights groups, who respond more to stories in the mainstream press than in their own community newspapers.

We've seen this happen several times before and we think it is a big mistake; we have our ears to the ground in the heart of the Arab-American community – in fact, the mainstream media often comes to us for story leads and opinion. The dialogue between national Arab-American civil rights groups and the Arab-American media currently runs only one way: from them to us, in the form of press releases and action alerts.

Either way, it doesn't say much for the TSA, the safety of airline passengers, or the civil rights groups who are meant to have all of our best interests at heart.

Any comments or suggestions? Please e-mail us at Aramica@aramica.com.