Religious, minority and civil rights activists are asking Homeland Security officials to screen their own airport screeners using video cameras to check whether passengers are being subjected to bias or profiling.

"We believe such controls are critical to ensuring that our nation's [screeners] are focused squarely on security threats and not distracted by any personal bias," the organizations said in a letter this week to Kip Hawley, director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The letter was signed by several groups including the Sikh Coalition, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Asian American Justice Center, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Council of La Raza.

The activists say recent policy changes give transportation security officers more discretion to pull aside passengers for additional screening that results in "an unchecked ability to engage in racial, religious, ethnic or national origin profiling of air travelers."

The policies they cite include the Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program — which uses behavior to identify high-risk passengers — the discretionary lighter ban and the policy for screening bulky clothing.