more stupidity from the US Govt...


http://www.mercurynews.com/religion/...nclick_check=1

Sikh men feel targeted at airports
TURBAN `SEARCHES' ANGERS COMMUNITY
By Rebecca Rosen Lum
MediaNews
Article Launched: 08/28/2007 01:39:46 AM PDT



A new Homeland Security Department policy singles out Sikh men for rigorous airport security searches at the discretion of screeners, a national civil rights organization says.

The United Sikh Coalition has written to Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to protest the policy, implemented Aug. 4, which it says amounts to racial profiling. Nearly 2,000 have signed petitions.

Previously, travelers wearing turbans were searched only if they failed to clear metal detectors or other preliminary checks. The new rules, implemented Aug. 4, allow pat-downs of religious headgear at the screener's discretion.

For the world's 25 million Sikhs, the turban is an article of faith, only to be removed in the home or in private.

"In the last three weeks, we've heard dozens of complaints, people being asked to remove their turbans in public and denied the use of a mirror or space to re-tie them, said Kavneet Singh, East Bay resident and director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. "For a Sikh man, that's like being strip-searched."

J.P. Singh, president of the Sikh Center of the San Francisco Bay Area in El Sobrante, teaches Department of Justice and local law enforcement agencies about Sikh practices.

"It's like asking a woman to take off her blouse in public," he said. "It's that bad."

Continued...

"What was very strange to us is they are saying it's totally up to the screener," he said. "It's the perception of the screener. And that person could be biased."

Screeners may also search people wearing cowboy hats or straw hats. Skullcaps, worn by many observant Jews, are not on the list of suspicious head coverings, "so it means a specific community is targeted," Kuldip Singh said.

http://www.mercurynews.com/religion/...nclick_check=1