500,000 Names Scrubbed Under New Criteria Following Christmas Day Attempt

The U.S. government has relaxed the standards for inclusion on its "No-Fly" list following the Christmas Day attempt to bring down an airliner bound for Detroit. Under the new standards, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of attempting to bring down a Northwest Airliner bound for Detroit, would have not been allowed to fly.

The 23-year-old Nigerian was not on the list even though his father had warned U.S. Embassy personnel that his son was becoming more radical. The information provided did not meet the criteria for the no-fly list, according to U.S. officials.

CNN reports that the intelligence community has "scrubbed" the list of about a half million names using new standards, and additional persons have been added to watch and no-fly lists. Some visas have also been cancelled.  "Rest assured that in light of what happened on December 25, we've gone back over these databases and there have been additional actions taken," Assistant Secretary Philip J. Crowley told reporters, though he did not give exact statistics as the numbers are constantly changing.

Senior officials speaking on condition of anonymity said that the new standards included information from one credible source, rather than multiple sources required before the December 25th event. Still, one official said the determination of who to put on a no-fly list is still "more art than science."

FMI: www.tsa.gov