Daily Archives: November 5, 2015

US Embassy Cairo’s Security Message Baffles Egyptian Foreign Ministry

November 5, 2015 By in Americans Abroad, Consular Work, Foreign Service, Huh? News, Realities of the FS, Security, Social Media, State Department, U.S. Missions, UK-FCO Tags: , , ,

Posted: 12:39 pm EDT
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On November 2, the US Embassy in Cairo issued a security message to U.S. citizens traveling to or residing in Egypt:

As a precautionary measure, the United States Embassy has instructed its employees not to travel anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula pending the outcome of the investigation into the tragic crash of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt on October 31. The Embassy will issue another message when this measure is lifted.

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US Embassy Cairo, like all posts and bureaus, is required to adhere to the State Department’s  ‘no double standard policy (pdf).  So thumbs up for them for doing this.  The security message is part of the agency’s consular information program and is not/not an internal memo.  What this means is if the Department shares information about potentially dangerous situations with the official U.S. community, it should also make the same or similar information available to the non-official U.S. community if the underlying threat applies to both official and non-official U.S. citizens/nationals.

The decision to issue a Travel Alert, Travel Warning, or a Security or Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens for an individual country is based on the overall assessment of the safety/security situation there. By necessity, this analysis must be undertaken without regard to bilateral political or economic considerations. Accordingly, posts must not allow extraneous concerns to color the decision of whether to issue information regarding safety or security conditions in a country, nor how that information is to be presented.

In related news, various media is now reporting that hundreds of British tourists are stranded in Sharm el-Sheikh: .

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