This is a joke, right?
I'm sure there are people out there who are willing to say this is a swell idea:
Words fail.
Of the more than 104,000 air travelers who were plucked out of security lines and subjected to a more intense level of screening because of something suspicious in their demeanor, fewer than 700 were ultimately arrested, officials said.
Many more — about 9,300 — revealed something during the screening process that caused the TSA to call in law enforcement for a more thorough investigation.
About half of those passengers weren't suspected of any particular crime, but behaved suspiciously enough that screeners thought police should be called anyway. More than half of the other referrals involved people carrying fraudulent documents, the TSA said. A small percentage involved drugs, contraband currency, immigration violations, or discoveries that a passenger was wanted by police.
Dubbed the SPOT program, for Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques, the effort is shrouded in some secrecy that makes it difficult to evaluate its worth.
TSA officials refuse to say exactly what sort of behavior can make them suspicious, but part of the effort relies on watching for fleeting facial expressions that indicate a person is under stress and has something to hide. Behavior agents also casually question people about where they are headed and look for clues in their responses.
Federal officials said the program, which requested a $45 million budget this year, is a worthwhile complement to random searches and an alternative to racial profiling.
Words fail.
Labels: Homeland Security
Since 1949, Durhamites have slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that, in our town, erection can be depended upon. Now, thanks to the power of the internets, we can spread that security all over the world.
4 Comments:
My understanding is that if you test those law enforcement agents on noticing that kind of behavior (actually the more specific behavior of detecting lies during questioning), law enforcement officers do no better than ordinary people at ferreting out liars. There is one exception: Secret Service agents. Whatever kind of training it is that the Secret Service gets, it works.
By
Joseph H. Vilas, at 12:02 AM
"More than half of the other referrals involved people carrying fraudulent documents".
So waitaminnit. Do I interpret this to mean that ~4650 of ~104,000 were carrying some kind of fraudulent documents? That seems crazy high to me.
By
Marsosudiro, at 12:49 AM
Just plain crazy. The false positive rate is enormous, and there's no reasonable way to determine false negatives. It's probably not more effective if we trained them in phrenology.
By
drcforbin, at 11:38 PM
I'm just sure the Founding Fathers envisioned a police state SOMEWHERE in America, so why not everyone's place to be, the goddam airport?
The airport security goons did all that work AND ate donuts at the same time? Such productivity!
If you want to wrap your mental lobes around what an incredible scam "airport security" really is, just consider "general aviation"--private jets and airplanes. There is no oversight of these flights at all. Passengers aren't even required to wear seat belts. It takes little imagination to conjure up terrorists with a budget, maybe a Saudi-sized one, that hires a fleet of private jets to fly into buildings.
Of course finding pilots to do that sort of work can be a challenge.
By
Tony, at 7:56 PM
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