Security officials weigh profiling airline passengers

Homeland Security officials and Republican lawmakers have begun downplaying the need for more bomb-detection technology, calling instead for expanded government monitoring and airline passenger profiling -- including, as House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., now suggests, pulling those of Middle Eastern descent out of airport lines for additional questioning.

These officials say last week's foiled plot in London to take down U.S.-bound airliners revealed the limits of current airport screening technology because the suspects planned to use common household liquids that probably would have gone undetected.

"We could have had all the liquid explosives detection systems in the world ... and that wouldn't have picked up the materials that these guys were using," one congressional source said. Instead, lawmakers and administration officials are now evaluating whether doing more surveillance and profiling of people makes more sense than trying to deploy technology for every conceivable threat.

"It's not all about technology," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "If we can't get a reasonable amount of information on people who are getting on airplanes, and if we can't get it in a timely fashion, we are tying our hands against what is still a very serious threat."

Homeland Security aides said Chertoff was referring to the need for Transportation Security Administration screeners to do more behavior recognition analysis of passengers. Aides said the department also is finalizing a rule requiring all international flights to provide passenger data to Customs' Advanced Passenger Information System, which checks that information against government watch lists.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales also ordered a review Monday of U.S. and British counterterrorism laws, including the authority to hold a suspect for 28 days without charges.

King told CongressDaily he is open to hearing arguments from the administration for new legal authority, and also suggested that airport officials "should consider Middle Eastern ethnic background as a reason for further questioning."

Given limited resources, King explained, treating everybody the same in the screening process might not make the best sense. But King said he believes the Bush administration has sufficient power through the president's constitutional authorities and the USA PATRIOT Act.

"On balance, we have enough power if it's used effectively," he said. "I want to know if [Chertoff] has any specific legislative remedies in mind ... Is he talking about something to be done with executive fiat, or will this be subtle policy changes?"

King said his committee wants Chertoff to testify next month at a hearing planned before the London terrorist plot was revealed Aug. 10. "Now, more than ever, it becomes essential for him to come in," King added.

House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee Chairman Rob Simmons, R-Conn., disclosed that the U.S. government helped foil the suspected terrorists by using the Patriot Act and "the terrorist surveillance program" that lets officials monitor without warrants certain overseas calls involving parties inside the United States.

Simmons said the government needs well-trained, well-resourced people operating in an information-sharing environment. "It also involves domestic surveillance of people who might be suspected of terrorist activity so if one or more of them books a reservation ... you don't wait for them to show up at the airport," he said.