Actually it really does matter and goes to the heart of his credibility on the matter. Clearly he has a financial stake in this and that is important.

I do agree though, I find the science (if you can all it that) fascinating. I've read a number of books on the subject and have attended short seminars on lie detection and I have found it immensely useful. It's really not hard at all to detect "casual liars" using these techniques.

However..It's one thing to detect dishonesty when you are focusing on a single individual in an interview situation or just a focused discussion vs TSA's method.

TSA is taking unskilled labor and giving them a 40 hour training class. Then having them focus on hundreds of people. Furthermore the people we are concerned about are not "casual liars", but "true believers" who have been training for their terrorist activity for years. For TSA, it boils down to if the person is frowning and if they are patting their pockets.

TSA is simply outmatched here. It's not realistic to have a meaningful outcome and so far, TSA's dismal success record proves that out.