TSA makes the claim about SPOT being effective by citing how many fake ID's, drug dealers, and other criminals they've been able to pick up with this. And even then, they're so few and far between that SPOT is largely a harassment exercise. Yet any time a major criminal makes it thru, they're missed. Kinda destroys the whole premise of SPOT finding people trying to do bad stuff on planes when all they find are small time criminals. On one hand, TSA claims success anytime a petty criminal is found while when someone big gets thru, claims SPOT was never meant to do it.

We don't know how he got to TX. Could have driven. Could have flown. I don't remember reading anything specific on that. However, we know that SPOT is a method of risk based screening, where the SPOTnik guesses perceives something that makes him/her think that the pax is a threat, or higher risk, that warrants at least a secondary. It's used to sort higher risk pax from lower risk pax.

There are a lot of ways to mitigate risk. No one can really predict what one person is going to do, especially based on the past. Many previously good guys turned bad later on, and there are bad guys that change their ways but are haunted by their past mistakes for the rest of their lives.

That's why the whole background check and TT program is junk. We see that it doesn't work well within TSA's ranks where they have some measure of control. And if they find something they don't like, or possibly even if they just don't like you, you can end up in the "bad" list and never be told why, nor can you ever really get off. It'll be a total failure when expanded to the general population. It will just be a matter of time until a TT blows something up, and then the plan goes down the toilet.

All TSA is planning to do with the risk system is separate people into "good" and "bad." And of course, if you don't submit, you're automatically "bad" even if you really are good.

Bottom line to mitigate the risk is too look at terrorism for what it really is: a threat, but a very small threat. Then analyze the vectors and determine the likelihood of it happening and the amount of damage it can REALISTICALLY cause. Then plan and mitigate from there. THAT is how you do risk based screening. Unless TSA thinks they can be mind readers and know what every person is thinking.