The disclosure is among more embarrassing and sensitive information to have reached the public after guidelines issued to security officers at airports were posted online. The breach has led to five transport officials from the Transportation Security Administration which posted the document being suspended from duties while an investigation is carried out, the Guardian reports.

The information disclosed in the document includes those countries whose citizens are singled out for automatic additional screening. In addition to Cuba, Iran and Syria, they are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

By contrast, the guidelines reveal that certain politicians including state governors and their deputies and immediate families are exempt from certain extra screening procedures, as are foreign dignitaries travelling with their own US security personnel and their diplomatic pouches.

The guidelines had been posted on a federal site used to advertise government contracts to private businesses. But officials had failed to black out sensitive information.
The document was spotted by a Manhattan-based blogger who runs a little-read blog relating to flying and travel called Wandering Aramean.

The TSA promptly removed the manual from the internet, but by then it had been cached on leaked document sites.

The manual also lists the rules over when a passenger can carry a gun on board an aeroplane.

It says that a passenger may place an unloaded firearm or starter pistol in a checked bag as long as the passenger declares it to the aircraft operator at the ticket counter before checking the bag, and the firearm is carried in a locked, hard-sided container for which only the passenger has the key or combination. (Via Telegraph)

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