Screening Process To Change for Travelers From 14 Countries

Travelers from 14 countries that have been home to terrorists will no longer automatically face extra screening before they fly to the U.S.

Beginning this month, anyone traveling to the U.S. will instead be screened based on specific information about potential terrorist threats, a senior Obama administration official said. A person would be stopped if he or she matches a description, even if officials do not have a suspect’s name, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.

For example, if the U.S. has intelligence about a Nigerian man between the ages of 22 and 32 whom officials believe is a threat or a known terrorist, under the new policy all Nigerian men within that age range will receive extra screening before they are allowed to fly to the U.S. If intelligence later shows that the suspect is not a terrorist, travelers will not be screened against that description.

The new procedures replace those that went into effect after the attempted bombing of a jetliner en route to Detroit on Christmas Day. Those rules required extra screening, such as full-body pat-downs, for everyone from, or traveling through, any of these 14 countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

via Official says new checks set for travelers to US – Yahoo! News.