Tom Lantos, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee warned the Transportation Security Administration about religious profiling after it changed its screening procedures to include searches of turbans reports Rediff.com. The 14-term California Democrat said the new policy to pull aside airline passengers with headgear had led to harassment of Sikh passengers. Sikh Americans have been asked to remove their turbans, a fundamental symbol of their faith, at the airport. Since the new policy was instituted August 4, more than 50 such incidents have been reported across the country. "The lack of religious sensitivity and inconsistency in implementing this revised policy is astounding and disturbing,' Lantos complained in a letter to TSA Adminstrator Kip Hawley adding that he could not understand how 'an agency that took pride in working with religious and community groups after the tragic events of September 11, 2001 be so cavalier and discriminatory in its policy that affects those same groups just six years later.' He asked for the TSA to quickly enact changes. Three Sikh organizations, SALDEF, the Sikh Coalition, and UNITED SIKHS submitted a joint memorandum to TSA expressing their concern that the new procedures give screeners to much latitude.

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