By Asif Akhtar

The United States’ Transport Service Authority (TSA) has drafted a list of 14 “countries of interest” in the aftermath of the failed “underwear bomber” plot to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. It seems airport security personnel around the world are on the lookout for weapons of mass destruction in people’s underwear (which may have its own implications of course).

What with being felt up and having risqué pictures taken as part of the package, travelling to the US has become more akin to visiting a sleazy nightclub on a bad night.

The new policy is supposed to replace earlier security measures which subjected all travellers to the United States to additional screenings and hand luggage restrictions, while forcing passengers to stay in their seats during the last hour of the flight. Also removed from the list of security precautions is the dreaded “full body pat-down”, which sounds a lot like a new-fangled dance move, but really isn’t.

Much to the relief of most passengers travelling to the US from the civilised parts of the world, only passengers flying through the “countries of interest” – including Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen – would be subject to more stringent security measures.

And to think that Arab countries were relieved that the underwear bomber wasn’t from their part of the world, or that Pakistanis actually took a deep breath thanking the lord that he wasn’t ‘trained in Pakistan’. The short answer from the US Department of Homeland Security is: “It doesn’t matter, you’re still on our list”.

The list of countries of interest, which also includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria, is basically the list of what someone at Homeland Security would call “terrorist countries”. Now that’s a bit unfair to the populations of these countries, being labelled as citizens of terrorist countries, and especially unfair to the citizens who travel regularly; God forbid they have to go to the US.

And to think the US prides itself on its democratic ideals. How undemocratic is it to label a whole country based on the actions of a select few who might have just happened to stop by there? I mean, how would the United States feel if the “developing world” got together and made a list of proto-colonial imperialist countries hegemonising the world? Oh wait, I stand corrected – wasn’t that the G7?

For now, it seems travellers coming into the US from all the non-terror holiday hotspots will be spared from mass humiliations such as the “full body pat-down”. According to a report in USA Today, Steve Lott of the International Air Transport Association said: “The 100% pat-down was not sustainable in the long-term”. Damn right it wasn’t sustainable, because its 100%, right?

Now I’m no expert on security, but isn’t it likely that Al-Qaeda or whoever it is sending people with explosive material in random parts of their clothing would adapt to this new measure, and have their operatives avoid travelling through these “countries of interest”? And since the 100% pat-down isn’t that sustainable in the long run, what about a 65% pat-down of all the passengers travelling to the United States? That might be a safer and more democratic option for everyone.

Asif Akhtar blogs at e_scape from nowher_e