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TSA's "Behavior Detection Officers"

Posted by kdawson on Sat Aug 18, 2007 08:04 AM
from the picking-on-an-easy-target dept.
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.
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  • Okay, and? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gcnaddict (841664) <gcnaddict @ g m a il.com> on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:08AM (#20274981)
    What is there to worry about? Odds are you're safe if you don't sweat (quite literally)
    • Re:Okay, and? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by b0s0z0ku (752509) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:44AM (#20275175)
      Some people (like me) just tend to sweat more than others. BTW, fear in the security line doesn't have to be caused by being afraid of being caught -- it might be just the fear of flying.


      -b.

      • Re:Okay, and? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by kypper (446750) on Saturday August 18 2007, @09:02AM (#20275273)
        Or a fear of a false positive... because god knows, those delays don't impact or affect you psychologically, nor do they fuck with your schedule and cause you to miss your plane...
  • "Gold standard" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Metasquares (555685) <slashdot@me t a s q u a r e d .com> on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:17AM (#20275025) Homepage
    Israeli security is the "gold standard" because it needs to be.
  • by jack_n_jill (642554) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:18AM (#20275035)
    For Israel, all their enemies are Arabs. They don't have to worry about profiling, discrimination, or civil rights. Israel is not a country of equal rights. Perhaps, if they were they would have peace and security.

    We Americans aspire to be something better.

    • Nitpick (Score:5, Insightful)

      by b0s0z0ku (752509) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:50AM (#20275195)
      For Israel, all their enemies are Arabs.

      "Arabs" != Muslims.

      There exist non-Muslim Arabs, and there exist non-Arab Muslim groups (Iranians for a start).

      -b.

      • Re:not really (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Haeleth (414428) on Saturday August 18 2007, @09:38AM (#20275503) Journal

        In fact racial profiling for terrorists would work quite well in the U.S. and E.U.
        Yeah - racial profiling would have stopped Timothy McVeigh in his tracks, wouldn't it?

        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?
  • by stevedcc (1000313) * on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:20AM (#20275049)

    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.

    • 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.

      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.
  • Let's hope... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by robably (1044462) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:25AM (#20275075) Journal

    Let's just hope they don't get swamped with false positives.
    No, let's hope they do. It would be nice if there was some limit to airport security where it becomes impractical to be any more totalitarian, especially as the measures at airports are creeping in to every other part of society.
  • by ahfoo (223186) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:31AM (#20275111) Journal
    I can't believe the people on here acting like this is a good thing or that Israeli style air force security is a step in the right direction. I just saw a documentary on how the Israelis routinely cavity search ten year old girls just because they are Palestinians. The intent is not to find anything, but to intimidate them and their families from returning to Israel. Even Israeli citizens, particularly female, who have publicly disagreed with militarist policies are strip searched simply to humiliate them and discourage them from travel.
            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.
      • by ahfoo (223186) on Saturday August 18 2007, @10:08AM (#20275703) Journal
        Here's the information you're interested in. I'm sure you're genuinely interested rather than merely being one of these typical right wing assholes hoping to discredit any opinion you don't like by asking for documentation in the rhetorical manner of Rush Limbaugh or one of the many idiots at Fox News.
                  I'm willing to assume you're not one of those fascist cunts and that you really are interested in the facts. In that case, this is the video I refer to:

        Easiest Targets: The Israeli Policy of Strip Searching Women and Children

        description:13-minute video: Five women - Palestinian, American, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish - tell stories of humiliation and harassment by Israeli border guards and airport security officials.

                  In fact, you will find testimoney by American Christians and Jews as well as Palestinians if you take the time to watch the video.

        You can watch it at Google Video with the following link:
        http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-691161000 548687549 [google.com]

        In addition, you can download the torrent from www.onebigtorrent.org which was formerly known as chomskytorrents.org.

        I would say enjoy the film, but it's not meant to be an enjoyable film.
  • by DocJohn (81319) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:37AM (#20275145) Homepage
    The MSNBC commentator called it a pseudo-science because that's exactly what it is.

    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]
    • by hey! (33014) on Saturday August 18 2007, @09:20AM (#20275353) Homepage Journal
      That's the problem with using the media's term. Look up Paul Ekman from USCSF. He has numerous published papers on facial expressions and affect. [paulekman.com]

      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.
  • More money wasted (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dystopian Rebel (714995) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:59AM (#20275261) Journal
    This is more money impudently squandered.

    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.
  • by davecl (233127) on Saturday August 18 2007, @09:04AM (#20275277)
    Maybe 'it's a well-understood skill that can be taught and learned', but so is astrology. Does that stop it from being a pseudoscience?

    Perhaps that's the key - from now on the TSA can do natal charts for all passengers and use horoscopes to work out which ones are terrorists!
  • by redelm (54142) on Saturday August 18 2007, @09:49AM (#20275557) Homepage
    Airport security has become like border crossings: the officials do not require any probable cause for searches and detentions. They can use any and all means, even arbitrary or hunches. That's the long-standing custom because their effectiveness is considered more important that the passers rights to privacy. If you don't like it, don't go there. Frankly, less arbitrary means will help their effectiveness.

    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." :)

  • Never again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cherokee158 (701472) on Saturday August 18 2007, @10:06AM (#20275691)
    Has it occurred to anyone that there will most likely NEVER be another successful hijacking of an airliner BECAUSE of 9/11? Any effort to do so will result in another Flight 93. It's not hard to be a hero when you know the only other option is death...I doubt any group of American passengers is likely to sit quietly the next time an Arab with a box cutter starts barking orders.

    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.

     
    • Re:Never again (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jimicus (737525) on Saturday August 18 2007, @12:35PM (#20276923) Homepage
      Has it occurred to anyone that there will most likely NEVER be another successful hijacking of an airliner BECAUSE of 9/11? Any effort to do so will result in another Flight 93. It's not hard to be a hero when you know the only other option is death...I doubt any group of American passengers is likely to sit quietly the next time an Arab with a box cutter starts barking orders.

      I'd go several steps further.
      • Most hijackings are unsuccessful, because at some point the plane has to land. Normally, when it lands it's surrounded by a small army of armed law enforcement officials. September 11 is the first and only time that the goal was not to land the aircraft.
      • Since September 11, many countries have adopted a policy of shooting down hijacked aircraft.
      • Further, since September 11 aircraft have had stronger doors with locks fitted on the cabin. The captain can just carry on flying while the crazed hijacker has to deal with 2-400 angry passengers bearing down on them at once.


      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.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 18 2007, @10:35AM (#20275893)

    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.

  • Yay Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)

    by $beirdo (318326) on Saturday August 18 2007, @05:41PM (#20279983) Homepage
    This kind of shit makes me ashamed to be an American.
    • Re:Um, no. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by b0s0z0ku (752509) on Saturday August 18 2007, @08:47AM (#20275181)
      Only took me 20 minutes to get through the security checkpoint line.

      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.

        • by phozz bare (720522) on Saturday August 18 2007, @02:43PM (#20278425)
          On the contrary, it could theoretically work, as most Arabs would not pass the test because they cannot pronounce the phoneme for "o". It would sound like an "oo" sound. Actually, a better test would be to say the name Peugeot; Arabs cannot usually pronounce any of the phonemes required, and would say "bee-joo" ('j' like a soft 'g').

          In practice this method is not used, as someone intending to cheat could simply learn how to say these words properly.
        • by 10101001 10101001 (732688) on Saturday August 18 2007, @04:20PM (#20279279) Journal

          First of all, these are not police, these are TSA officers.

          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?

          They work in airports, the article is about airports, and our discussion is about airports. It's not as if these people are walking around on every street, stopping and questioning whomever they please.

          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.

          Third, when you enter an airport, like it or not, you WILL be put under a greater level of scrutiny than in many other places. There aren't many other places where you're asked to discard you water bottle, take off your shoes, and have your bag X-rayed before you'll be let in.

          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...

          Finally, this appears to be a fairly new program, and the writer of TFA doesn't actually provide any instances of real people encountering problems with these officers.

          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.

    • Re:I don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Torodung (31985) on Saturday August 18 2007, @04:26PM (#20279347) Journal

      To everyone who says that this is jackbooted Oppressiveness, what exactly do you propose should we do to make sure that hijackers can't get on a plane?
      Nothing at all. They get on the plane.

      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