Israel Matzav

Great news: Muslim Public Affairs Council training TSA security agents

This ought to make you all feel secure. TSA has hired the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) to train its security guards. In the past, MPAC has been a vocal opponent of security at the airport.

According to a press release by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the organization recently completed training for 2,200 officers charged with protecting our nation's air security. According to the release, the two-month training course highlighted "the diversity of Muslims around the world from cultural dress to language and tenets," and "taught the TSOs how to properly handle a Quran and discussed the different ways Muslim women and men choose to cover or dress."

Reliance upon MPAC to improve airport security is misplaced. The organization has not only defended designated terrorist organizations, but criticized U.S. counter-terrorism efforts including those aimed at securing airports.

Unquestionably the largest failing of airport security in the United States was the Sept. 11 attacks. Two years before those attacks, a July 1999 issue of Al-Talib, an Islamist student newspaper at UCLA of which MPAC's Edina Lekovic served as managing editor, described Osama bin Laden as a "great Mujahid" and as a "freedom fighter and philanthropist." This, despite the fact that bin Laden had already issued a global fatwa against the United States.

Since those attacks, MPAC has denounced any attempts to improve airline security. Criticizing U.S. law enforcement efforts at preventing terrorism, MPAC has argued that "our nations citizens—particularly Muslim, South Asian and Arab Americans—have experienced repeated erosions of their civil liberties in our nation's airports, and in their houses of worship through intrusive and questionable law enforcement techniques."

Despite being a vocal critic, MPAC continues to be invited to assist the law enforcement community in fashioning security policies. Earlier this year, MPAC representatives met with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. During that meeting the groups "expressed concerns about DHS policies, such as racial, ethnic, and religious profiling at airports and the border, that have eroded the government's trust and credibility with the communities."

The criticisms reached a fever pitch following last year's failed bombing on Christmas Day by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. While law enforcement was working to prevent another attack, MPAC was criticizing every such effort.

What could go wrong?

Labels: airport security, enhanced pat downs, strip or grope, TSA

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:26 PM