TSA's "Behavior Detection Officers" 281
Stanistani sends us to MSNBC for a dyspeptic Newsweek commentary on the TSA's latest attempt to make air travel safer: the rather ominously named "Behavior Detection Officers" now working in a dozen US airports, and slated to go nationwide in 2008. They are trained in the discipline of reading "micro-expressions." The editorialist calls that a pseudo-science, but in fact it's a well-understood skill that can be taught and learned. A cursory look at this TSA program might put one in mind of Orwell's "facecrime," and that's the road the Newsweek writer goes down. Yet some who bemoan the security theater historically run by the TSA point to the gold standard of airport security, Tel Aviv airport, and wonder why TSA officers can't act more like the Israelis. Bruce Schneier wrote recently about one reason why the Israeli security model isn't completely transplantable to these shores: scale. And here's Schneier's take on behavioral profiling from a year ago. That's what the BDOs will be trying for: scrutinizing intent instead of pocket knives. Let's just hope they don't get swamped with false positives.
Okay, and? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Gold standard" (Score:5, Insightful)
The Israeli's have it easy! (Score:4, Insightful)
We Americans aspire to be something better.
I might be in the minority here (Score:2, Insightful)
The flipside to that is that I don't trust anybody I've interacted with at TSA to be astute enough to actually flag people properly. One *might* be able to get a few well trained people everywhere, but you're not going to be able to get enough to do any good. The next logical step is going to be trying to integrate it with all those "face recognition" programs we're always hearing about...and that won't work so well either.
Isn't this open to abuse? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that airport security is a tough issue, and something that needs to be done right, but allowing an interpretation of a micro-expression to be used to select people for further investigation basically gives the airport staff the option of pulling over anyone, any time under this pretext.
Do they collect statistics on how powers like this are used? In the UK, the police have had to start collecting statistics on the use of stop and search powers, because of concerns about racial profiling. The statistics have verified claims that the behaviour of the subjects is not what's being used by officers when deciding to search, the race of the subject is. Of course, this has lead to claims that the police are trying to find excuses to stop and search large parties of other ethnic group, to alter their statistics, without any probable cause (eg searching all passengers coming of a train for weapons, when they had no evidence that any existed)
I'm not necessarily against this kind of selection, but I do believe that it needs to be implemented carefully to prevent abuse and unfair treatment of certain sections of the population, so that not only is the security done right, it's seen to be done right.
Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh great, let's emmulate the Israelis. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really where we should be heading in America, is it now? So, since our Palestinians equivalents are the Mexicans then I suppose our lovely new Israeli style airport security policy ought to include strip searching and fondling all young Mexican girls in order to discourage them from travel. I mean after all, that's the example the Israelis offer. It has worked so well for them so far, hasn't it.
If we really want to stop terrorism, then perhaps we should start by not dropping bombs on foreign countries and killing hundreds of civilians each week. That might be an even more effective method than assigning the gestapo to the airports.
It actually *IS* a pseudo-science (Score:5, Insightful)
There are exactly zero citations in MEDLINE and PsycINFO for a peer-reviewed study done on normal people using this technique. There's one where it was used to help people with schizophrenia learn emotional cues in others. The only other citation was a book chapter (which isn't a study).
So yes, when you have little or no science in the psychological and medical databases to back up your psychological technique, we call that a pseudo-science -- it's not a real, proven technique.
And because of this, it definitely should NOT be used at airports. There is a great deal of science showing how lousy humans are at detecting lying, including nonverbal cues.
--
Get your psych on: http://psychcentral.com/ [psychcentral.com]
Re:Okay, and? (Score:4, Insightful)
-b.
Nitpick (Score:5, Insightful)
"Arabs" != Muslims.
There exist non-Muslim Arabs, and there exist non-Arab Muslim groups (Iranians for a start).
-b.
Isn't the current system more "open to abuse"? (Score:5, Insightful)
They already have this option!
This is designed to make that option actually, you know, useful.
Even if you think it could be "abused", they can already effectively select anyone, for any reason, for secondary inspection. That's the whole point of trying to use some kind of behavioral cues, instead of just randomly doing it to anyone (or young blonde women), or only persons who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent.
Yes, as you say, it needs to be done right. But please read Schneier's article [schneier.com] and the New York Times story [iht.com] on the topic.
Re:The Israeli's have it easy! (Score:2, Insightful)
As to the equal rights, do you suggest that Israel search everyone equally? How does that make sense? The terrorist attacks that occur on a regular basis there are almost all carried out by Arabs. However, aside from checkpoints, Arabs have full voting rights, full rights to attend any university, full rights to work anywhere they want, buy anything they want, etc. Do you know the rights of a Jew in an Arab country? The right to be hung.
More money wasted (Score:5, Insightful)
Passengers are not the only worry for airport security. For most of modern US history, passengers have posed little concern. At the same time, the US has had many international enemies.
Airports are full of security holes. Other freight handling systems are full of security holes. "Appearing" to do things to improve security is a political strategy.
The USA is not more secure. But government is much, much bigger... and has more power than a supposed democracy should give it.
Re:Okay, and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Flying Harassment (Score:2, Insightful)
However, what security does the TSA provide? It's pretty obvious that any intelligent enemy will continue to change tatics. This became all the more clear to me when the TSA harassed my wife for more than 5 minutes recently about my 4 month old son's baby bottle. It was more than three ounces because he eats more than three ounces, this was a revelation. They also continue to harass me for 'electronics density'.
You can't travel regularly without flying airlines. Terror is something pretty straight forward and it's being inflicted on america every day by the TSA. We are no safer.
Best case I can always go through security with just my book and my boxers. (they'll search my book for cellulose density) I'll then superglue my face so I have no expression and do the robot through the airport.
Re:not really (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, unless you are willing to search *every* Arab, it isn't very useful to profile race, as there are many many Arabs, and your false positives will be huge, while some bad guys slip through. Behavioral approaches are much sounder(especially when combined with 'police work' approaches).
Deliberatly acting suspicious (Score:2, Insightful)
How long before terrorists catch on and play this diversion game too? If the real terrorists can train themselves to "look normal" and pay some college students to "spoof the system" as a distraction, will that lead to another air disaster?
In the game of spy-vs-spy, or rather the TSA vs. real or imagined terrorists, no technique is foolproof.
Re:not really (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, wait, he wasn't an Arab. (Or even foreign.) Or a Muslim. (Or even religious.)
In fact he was a white American agnostic. Didn't stop him committing one of the worst acts of terrorism in America's history, of course.
Okay, so you want to look only at cases where Muslim fundamentalists are trying to blow up planes, do you? Okay, please explain how racial profiling would have helped catch Richard Reid, who was, uh, a white British-Jamaican man, who easily made it onto a plane with a bomb and would have succeeded in downing a trans-Atlantic flight if another passenger hadn't spotted him trying to light the fuse.
But hey, let's not let the truth get in the way of indulging our xenophobia, shall we?
Probable cause NOT required (Score:5, Insightful)
A much bigger question is whether these officials should have those powers. Whether passers rights should not be more respected. This is a deeply political question, to be settled by political means. Denying tools is only very indirect criticism.
I would vastly have preferred airport security stay within the control of the airlines. Perhaps with federal "guidence". Then no question of 4th Amendment could come up. Or maybe "fruit of the poisoned vine" doctrine should be imposed: "20kg cocaine? Hmm ... that's not explosive. Have a nice flight, sir." :)
Re:The Israeli's have it easy! (Score:2, Insightful)
Especially illogical is this part "if they were they would have peace and security." Besides Israel, there are enough examples of countries with equal rights for everyone where (generally) Muslims choose to physically force their views upon others. A good example of this happened recently in Norway, where a Muslim couple-husband and wife-chose to beat up a young woman at a mall because she wasn't dressed as a young woman should dress.
IMHO, everyone hates Americans precisely because of idiots like jack_n_jill.
Re:For a different take on this program... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with someone well-trained being assigned to watch the passengers as they check in and board the plane, and if they see someone who's acting hinky, pull them out of line just to see if they're OK. That does not strike me as Orwellian or some nightmarish violation of our rights.
It actually strikes me as much more sensible and effective than many of the truly Orwellian and nightmarish violations of our rights that have been perpetrated by the Bush Administration. I'm thinking spy satellites over the US, surveillance without any accountability, etc. etc.
If I'm on a plane, and suddenly a group of people start praying loudly, that's a red flag regardless of the religion involved. I don't care if they're nuns who start saying the rosary loudly as a group, I want the air marshal to check it out.
Re:not really (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For a different take on this program... (Score:1, Insightful)
Not that I necessarily object to this program, though I'm suspicious of the way it will be implemented, but false positives in any meaningful number are unacceptable.
Re:smile, smile, smile (Score:1, Insightful)
You can be trained in psuedo-science (Score:1, Insightful)
The freedom to feel contemptuous of government (Score:3, Insightful)
And through your hard earned tax dollars you are funding them and their cronies to do this to you. As much as 60% of your working life will be directly to fund the government that is doing this to you, that government whose agents are shouting and you with a boot on your head, with your trousers dropped, and an agent's cold hand - big brother's hand - telling you it is for your own good, that if you would only fall in line they would not have to do this.
But don't worry, so long as you smile, keep your mouth shut, and fall in line, you won't be bothered, citizen.
It is only a matter of time if we do not dramatically reverse course now. If this presidential election comes down to a race between Hillary or Obama and Giuliani, Thompson, or Romney, the decline will only accelerate. If we do not reverse course now, in 8 years we will very likely have passed the point of no return, where these policies are accepted by the populous, where the police state propaganda has thoroughly subdued them, and we will be unable to rouse them to fight.
To avoid this fate you must act now. Get behind a candidate who you can count on not to sell us out to the military industrial complex, who you can count on to wrest us free from the interests of large bankers and financial institutions, who you can count on to defend the letter of the Constitution in its original spirit, for which the blood of many patriots was shed.
And that doesn't mean just posting on internet forums. That means volunteering to travel to, to write to, and to call citizens in the primary states. If we do not get wins for these candidates in the primaries, it will be as good as lost. Now is the time to act to defend your freedom, or you will soon find it has been taken from you and it will be too late. http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ [ronpaul2008.com]
Re:For a different take on this program... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Okay, and? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Never again (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd go several steps further.
It therefore follows that only the most mentally deranged terrorist group would even consider an aircraft hijacking today. It's expensive, and the chances of it all going to plan these days are practically zero.
Re:For a different take on this program... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, does that mean I can ignore them? I mean, if they're not police, they're just regular citizens. The most they can do is talk to the airlines and ask that I not be allowed to board. On the other hand, that's a great basis for me to sue the airlines. I mean, I paid them for a service, and they're denying it. The only way out of that is, of course, to have TSA screening as a part of the contract. Or are you willing to admit that the TSA is a federal police force, and so they do have authority to arrest you or force a search upon you?
Well, that's good to know. You do realize that a lot of people at airports are there to see other people off, right? And given that airport security will screen family that's seeing someone off, I can only imagine that the TSA does as well. So, sure, the TSA isn't "out on every street". They are screening people who aren't flying, though.
In short, because the TSA is unreasonable in its security, we should expect more unreasonable security procedures and not complain about it. Yea, that's *totally* logical...
Well, since it's a fairly new program, we'll just ignore the clear absurdity of it until it rears its ugly head. I mean, it's like if tomorrow there was made a law that every second born child under 12 should be executed on sighting. Since it'd be "a fairly new program" and there wouldn't instantly be "provide[d] any instances of real people encountering problems", we'll just have to wait until the body count grows to a large enough amount to start complaining. And even if the law gets overturned, if Congress kept passing new second-born-child-execution laws, carefully worded to be different yet do the same thing, after a while we'd just have to accept that that's how things are. I mean, it's not like they'd be killing adults or the first born. Irrational tradition beats Constitutionality or sanity.
What crap. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's just hope they don't get swamped with false positives.
Lets hope they DO get swamped with false positives and stop with this nonsense. Damn. What a bunch of fascist crap.
RS
Yay Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:For a different take on this program... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sure, and thanks for asking. (Score:2, Insightful)