One hour before landing, this stark warning was offered by the flight attendant on a United Airlines flight from Brussels to Washington: "Anyone who stands will be considered a security threat," , according to dpa. Such was the mood, just days after a young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, allegedly tried to detonate explosives on board a flight from Amsterdam"s Shiphol Airport as it descended towards Detroit. The plot prompted a stiff security crackdown on flights into the United States. The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) handed down strict directives for all US-bound flights. For the final hour of flights, passengers were forced to sit in their seats and keep nothing on their laps, not even reading material. Blankets, pillows and newspapers were confiscated. Toilets were locked. The map function for passengers to keep track of the plane"s whereabouts was disabled. Uneasy passengers were given little information. Announcements pleaded with passengers to stop asking how much longer until the plane lands: Staff were not allowed to say. At airports, the restrictions included more baggage checks, complete pat-downs of passengers and limits on the amount of hand luggage passengers could carry on the plane. Already struggling for business in an economic downturn, airlines hastened to add that these tough new restrictions were handed down by the US government, not by the airlines themselves. Many of the measures seemed a direct response to the plot: The attacker was able to smuggle the powder explosive PETN through airport screening by hiding it in his underwear; he spent 20 minutes assembling the bomb in the toilet just before landing; and he tried to ignite the powder from under a blanket in his lap. Yet much of the response was temporary. Some of the in-flight rules had already been relaxed by TSA at the start of this week, instead left up to the discretion of the crew. Just how much airport security will change over the long term is an open question. President Barack Obama has ordered a full review of screening procedures - with preliminary results expected Thursday - and the European Union has announced a similar investigation. Critics point out that existing full-body scanners could have detected the PETN explosive that Abdulmutallab smuggled past metal detectors. Amsterdam"s airport already had 15 such scanners, and the Dutch government announced Wednesday that it would make them operational within three weeks for all US-bound flights. But such advanced technology has run up against privacy concerns. The scanners reveal all parts of the body. Amsterdam has partially automated the process to get around the concerns: If the computer indicates a suspicious object, airport staff will be directed to do a full pat-down instead of looking at the image. Some Muslim groups meanwhile have voiced concerns that increased racial profiling could be one response to the attack. They cited a case of two Middle Eastern men removed from a Phoenix flight on Saturday because a passenger allegedly warned they were speaking loudly in a foreign language. A more serious flight scare was caused Sunday when a young Nigerian man spent about an hour in the toilet on the same Amsterdam- Detroit route that was Friday"s target. It later emerged he had food poisoning. While everyone supports robust airline security measures, racial and religious profiling are in fact counterproductive and can lead to a climate of insecurity and fear," said Ibrahim Hooper of the US- based Council on American-Islamic Relations.
