It took more than a week of talk and criticism, but the Transportation Security Administration has tightened security for all travelers flying into the U.S. following the airline calamity on Christmas Day.

These stringent TSA rules took effect at midnight on the Sunday following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner heading into Detroit from Amsterdam. It's expected that the new rules are only just the beginning of U.S. security efforts to do a better job on screening passengers and using intelligence tools to track down and ferret out potential terrorist threats.

Passengers from 14 countries on the State Department's "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list, plus all passengers from other "countries of interest" such as Nigeria, Pakistan and Yemen, will receive "full body pat-down and physical inspection of property," according to a TSA spokeswoman.

Still unknown is exactly how the federal government intends to use databases filled with the names of people on the terrorist watch lists to make sure the information is conveyed to the proper intelligence agencies.

For more on new TSA rules:
- see this New York Times article