WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- There are calls for changes to screening procedures at U.S. airports in the wake of the alert that followed a plot to attack transatlantic jetliners.
Officials say the plot, allegedly hatched by Muslim extremists, involved liquid explosives which would have been assembled into bombs on the planes themselves, with detonators hidden in electronic gadgets. Such explosives are almost impossible to detect using currently deployed technology.
Some commentators and lawmakers have suggested that -- absent newer and more effective technologies -- security staff should begin giving greater scrutiny to Muslim travelers.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security told Fox News that such changes would be "common sense."
"If the IRA had blown up Lower Manhattan," he said last week, "then people with Irish names or red hair and freckles should be stopped more than an African-American or an Italian-American ... it makes no sense to be frisking 80-year-old women and allowing others just to walk through without being stopped.
"I think if you want to call it profiling or if you want to call it more intelligent screening, yes, it has to be done and it should be done."
