Originally Posted by eyecue

I have seen it work. ... TSA did gather stats on it in the early years. I dont believe those were ever published....

Originally Posted by SeriouslyLost

That's weird because all the actual science about it says that it doesn't really work. ... I wish it wasn't SSI so that TSA could tell us how it works so well for them with their high school grads with their ~20 hours of training.

Originally Posted by chollie

It has 'worked' to detect folks with outstanding warrants and fake IDs.

It has not 'worked' to detect someone who posed a threat to aviation security - which is what TSA is supposed to be focused on.

Originally Posted by Mr. Gel-pack

The BDO positive predictive power of less than 1% for druggies and identity thieves (or 0/160000 for terrorists worth the name) might compare favorably with homeopathy, but in industrial quality control situations where defect rates of 1-in-a-million or 1-in-a-billion are common, achieveable goals, TSA BDO error rates are poor.

Originally Posted by USA Today

A TSA program launched in early 2006 that looks for terrorists using a controversial surveillance method has led to more than 160,000 people in airports receiving scrutiny, such as a pat-down search or a brief interview. That has resulted in 1,266 arrests, often on charges of carrying drugs or fake IDs, the TSA said.

Originally Posted by RadioGirl

I'll 'splain. Is no time, I'll sum up:
a) 99.21% of people stopped by BDOs are not found to be doing anything wrong. (The "falsely suspected" factor.)
b) 0.79% of the people stopped by BDOs have been found to be doing something illegal. (The "sheer dumb luck" factor.)
c) 0.00000% of the people stopped by BDOs have been found to be terrorists. (The "needle-in-a-haystack" factor.)
d) 0.01% of all the people in airports were stopped by BDOs but were not doing anything illegal. (The "hassle" factor.)
e) there is no way of knowing how many people who were not stopped were doing something illegal (terrorist-related or otherwise).
f) If about 0.79% of the people who go through airports are doing something illegal, then the BDOs "secret powers" are no better than just randomly picking people out of the crowd.

But while we can play statistics all day long, I keep remembering this is an organization that agonizes over whether 3 is, or is not, 3.4, and struggles with fluid ounces versus ounces (weight).

When TSA says "BDOs are effective" they mean "it impresses the Kettles to have people asking questions in the airport."