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.
Sounds a lot like what El Al does (Score:3, Interesting)
smile, smile, smile (Score:3, Interesting)
For a different take on this program... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Um, no. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then again, I got bumped from my flight to Frankfurt last month, only to be put back on at the last minute. The TSA people walked the group that was reinstated through the checkpoints with practically no security since the plane was leaving in 5 min. Some of those people were "volunteers" who )_asked_ to be on a later flight since there was a eu.400 payment for being bumped.
-b.
not really (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, there are demographic differences : Israel's terrorists are usually palistinian, and thus look exactly like Israelis. America's terrorists are usually Saudi Arabian, i.e. half African but nothing like African Americans.
In fact racial profiling for terrorists would work quite well in the U.S. and E.U. People just aren't interested in risking their lives to hurt you, unless their religious.
Our position will only becomes as bad as Israel's when crazy American Christians start blowing up airplanes.
Nope, there are publications (Score:4, Interesting)
The question isn't whether the study of micro-expressions is science or not; the question is whether particular claims or assumptions about micro expressions exceed what is scientifically defensible, particularly whether inferences made from the study of micro-expressions are reliable. They're almost certainly, in this context, not.
It all has to do with the nature of evidence. Evidence forms a network, within which inferences can be made. Any single strand of that network will tend to be unreliable.
For example, if you know a person well, you probably could use micro-expressions very effectively. If you knew a lot about what the person is doing, you probably could as well. However, as a screening test, it is bound to be extremely unreliable. Even if you catch a fleeting glimpse of anger, disgust, or contempt on somebody's face in an airport security line, even presuming you are correct, it tells you absolutely nothing about that person, other than he is angry, disgusted, or contemptuous. Anybody who has done much traveling by air is bound to feel those things from time to time.
This is the problem with all screening tests that look for something extremely rare in the general population. Even with a highly reliable test, the rate of false positives will tend to be much higher than the rate of true positives. This is the problem with random drug tests; unless you are testing for a drug that is very commonly used, you don't have a great deal of certainty from a positive test, unless you have other evidence leading you to suspect drug use.
Never again (Score:5, Interesting)
The over-the-top security measures at our airports are simply political theater and not effective policing methods. I can't believe they still have everyone removing their shoes...thank goodness no one tried to smuggle an IED on board in a bodily orifice. And if anyone swiped MY kid's formula bottle because of some Kubrickian fear of fluids, I'd be on my way to Gitmo for attempting to bend a TSA agent into a pretzel.
Why can't they simply take a nod from Israeli Airlines and stick a guy with an Uzi on board each plane? Lord knows I've been on flights where his presence would have been welcome, if only to subdue the toothless trailer park escapee trying to open the window at 30,000 feet.
And why aren't these same security procedures in place at U-Haul? After all, they haven't always used airplanes to blow up buildings...
All of the money being spent on this bloated home security apparatus, all of the money spent keeping the military stocked with munitions, all of the money spent devising better prosthetic limbs before all of the returning veterans hobbling around begin to make 'victory' in Iraq seem a bit of an oxymoron,,,all of this money might have been better spent reducing our dependence on fossil fuels three decades ago when it first became obvious how vulnerable we were to the vagaries of Middle-Eastern politics. If we'd spent even half the money we have wasted making ourselves feel safe from threats both real and imaginary since 9/11 on alternative fuel research ten years ago, Bin Laden would be penniless and living quietly in a tent in some arid desert, pulling the legs off of scorpions for his sick amusement, instead of enjoying eternal life as the bogeyman of the 21st century.
It would be wise to remember that, througout history, many more people have been killed or imprisoned by their own government than any foreign power. It's probably not such a good idea to make it easy for them.
Israeli airport security is easily gamed (Score:4, Interesting)
Americans who are visiting Israel once or twice tend to be deeply impressed with Israeli security. Once you get used to it, however, it is easily gamed -- many of the procedures haven't changed for decades, most of the inspectors are 20-somethings making minimum wage and subject to the same levels of boredom as the TSA, and increasingly they don't have the language skills required to do a good interrogation. Once you've gone through a few times, you know what to expect and, assuming you aren't Arab and aren't "in the computer", you can pretty much choose the level of harassment you want assuming you know how to convincingly lie, which is not a particularly difficult skill to learn (and pretty much a required skill for anyone doing work in the area, on either the Israeli or Arab side). And in fact even Palestinians know quite a few ways around the system -- sure, they will be harassed, but it is fairly predictable.
I once did a business trip that involved visiting, in a two-week period, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon (illegal at the time for US citizens, though plenty were there), back to Jordan, back into Israel, Egypt, then Israel again, then out Tel Aviv. I answered lots and lots of questions about where I had been, what I had done, etc etc, lying the whole time, never once came anywhere close to getting stopped. Again, it just isn't that hard...comes with the territory, for better or worse.
Security going into Israel on carriers other than El Al is incredibly lax, worse at times than flights within the USA. So if someone wanted to try to smuggle explosives onto an airplane, in-bound would be the way to go, not out-bound through Tel Aviv. Given that the passenger profiles going into Israel are more or less the same as the profile going out, you'd make the same political statement.
So yes, it is mostly theater and pseudo-science, but makes a great first impression. And folks are making huge amounts of money "consulting" with the Dept of Homeland Security, who no one has ever accused of being the sharpest pencils in the box, on various hare-brained schemes like this.
Re:Okay, and? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, well the only place I'm flying to right now (to/from Manila) it's impossible not to sweat a little. And if I'm a little bit tense in line, it's because I hate no-smoking airports and no-smoking flights across the Pacific. The horror
I don't mind the security at NAIA - there really are troubled people who like to blow up airports and stuff there, but the security and the ominous color alert messages over the loud speaker at SFO are just annoying and a joke.
How many bombs have ever been exploded at SFO? There was at least one at NAIA in the last 4 years (and something like 3 in Davao City -- I'm really glad there's a lot of security there now).
Re:Okay, and? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's one of the annoyances with the States -- you feel like an unruly little child all the time on public transport. At airports, on trains, whatever, you get those recorded voices that sound like your 3rd grade schoolteacher admonishing you not to do this or to do that. In Poland and Eastern Europe, they still have airline security, but without the admonishing disembodied voices. And they don't check papers when you buy an intercity train ticket like Amtrak in the US (they're generally pretty reluctant to ask for ID for fear of evoking the old dictatorships -- I think it's just considered impolite unless it's really necessary).
-b.
Re:Sounds a lot like what El Al does (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Okay, and? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I'm riding a bus in Mindanao, I don't mind security stops. I've heard too many 1st person stories about captured buses and kidnapped people. I don't know what the AFP guys are checking for when we're stopped, but O.K. Maybe that's not O.K., what *are* they checking for? I haven't a clue and I've been in a stopped bus dozens of times.
Terror in the US is waaay overrated and maybe you need to spend some time in the 3rd world to understand just how much freedom is being taken away from you.
Just for the record (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been warned (and I actually saw a sign in the air port in France to that effect) that my return trip will not be so lenient.
Shachar
Re:I don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)
However, we must make sure the hijackers don't get control of that plane. If, by some miracle, they do get control, there must be little payoff and control must be difficult to maintain, and those facts should be publicized.
As a corollary, if getting control of a plane remains easy and the payoff is large (or perceived to be large), there is nothing you can do to keep the hijackers out. All you can do is put everyone in a TSA-approved, pocketless, uniform flight suit and disallow all carry-ons without medical certification (pre-certified, doctor authorized medicine/equipment, positive ID).
All you can do is to deny them weapons.
We are headed in this direction because of the hysterical intent to keep all undesirables off an insecure plane. If this is truly our intent, status quo in-flight security to protect the airline industry from having to spend money (or brook government influence in their business practices if the government were in charge of in-flight security), then let's forget the patronizing baby steps and go there already. Bring out the jumpsuits already!
That's the consequence of not securing the plane.
Personally, I say put sane security measures in place on the plane and let them try. We need to spend the appropriate money on in-flight security, and we need to stop hemming and hawing about how it's going to be done. If we can spend this much money trying to sponsor a failing democracy in Iraq, we can find the money for in-flight security.
--
Toro
Re:Sure, and thanks for asking. (Score:1, Interesting)
"Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America - founded in 1982 by Winifred Meiselman in Washington, DC to respond to perceived anti-Israel bias in the Washington Post.
"Anti-Defamation League" - founded by B'nai B'rith in the United States whose stated aim is "to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people.
"Defending America for Knowledge and Action" - a pro-American, pro-Israel activist group on US campuses headed by Lee Kaplan.
And on the other side, has the following supporters:
"Project Censored" - a non-profit, sociological project of an investigative nature within the Sonoma State University Foundation.
"Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting" - a national media watch group that defines its mission as working to "invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints.
Re:But Ekman may not be right (Score:3, Interesting)
I do some theater on the side -- both directing and acting. The best acting recreates emotional states in remarkable physiological detail. In slow moments, waiting in line (at the airport, for instance), I will often be silently practicing different emotional states and situations, either simply hypothetical or actual scenes from shows I'm working on. This discussion makes me wonder whether, if I were rehearsing, say, Jasper's soliloquy from "Drood" (in which he reminisces about his opium-addled attempt at murdering his nephew), I might not display "microexpressions" of murderous fury, fiendish glee, shocked realization, guilty grief. If so, would this coding system register such things?
Re:Oh great, let's emmulate the Israelis. (Score:2, Interesting)