From the report on the LAX shooting:

"(4) enhancing use of BDOs in plain clothes to blend into the crowd and analyze behaviors in public areas outside of the checkpoints;"

Pistole never gives up.

Ah, those would be Double Secret BDOs.

I wonder if those would be part of the armed TSO force that Pistole wants. Perhaps an armed TSA Secret Police force who can shoot you because you rolled your eyes up and right when you told the TDC that you were heading for "Cincinnati."

According to what I have read as far as the scientific research, the only testing done that used people truly under duress, was the one that showed some form of positive result. That is a nice twisting of words in your statement above, I neither indicated, implied or even thought that TSA checkpoints should generate stress in any way.

I doubt it.

I certainly did, and it simply reinforced the information I took from this report. People that were under real duress (regardless of the reason) appear to have shown more observable behaviors than folks sitting in an office being asked to lie about things that are not really important to them.

Agreed, but it boils down to an apples and oranges argument at this point. Almost every single test I have seen employs the same process of bringing people into an office and asking them to lie about something that is not important to them. The study using videos of people under genuine distress showed some promise. I am not saying that this is the end all of studies or research - quite the opposite, this should spur even more studies of both types to help educate all involved. I would love to see more studies using videos of people under some form of distress as (at least part) of the process. Someone lying about the color of their shorts or about a favorite story from their past - at someone elses request, is not going to exhibit the same types of behaviors that someone with a bomb strapped to them (coupled with the intention to use it) would. This has been my biggest challenge with the reports and scientific studies on behavioral analysis - it is next to impossible to generate the same emotional/physical stress loads in a laboratory setting. This shows a different format of looking at the information, and surprisingly for many, it shows that there could be some validity to behavioral analysis and promise in this science.

What you are forgetting in trying to defend your position as a BDO, West, is that people who are psychopaths lie with impunity. They are the bad guys you will never find. This is evidenced by the fact that the arrest rate for your "catches" is miniscule and not for any significant kinds of crime.

It's no more a "science" than phrenology or astrology are "science".

Furthermore, research projects involving human subjects require their consent. Consent under duress is not consent.

Pissant and the other scumbags who mandated and maintain this junk science belong in prison. For life.

Care to address this, West? You know, the 100% failure rate in catching people they're supposed to catch, and 1% success rate at catching the people they're looking for illegally?

You have not read all the studies then. You have a big false presumption then and that is that an evildoer will be under duress. Sure Bobby-Jo bin Jihad al-Mississippiani might show duress but others have not. And since Bobby-Jo bin Jihad al-Mississippiani is a moron he will likely blow up his meth lab slash bomb factory and self mort.

Look at the 11 Sept video of the asshat hijackers passing security. Calm, cool, and collected. Your several-hours-of-study voodoo would not work.

Scan all baggage (hand and hold) with proper working equipment. Make people pass through effective WTMD. Properly control airport access.
It can be done...
And if you bring up Tel Aviv airport I will send a scream through the computer as that has been debunked for so many different reasons I do not need to say it again.

I think researchers have said that terror organizations prefer to recruit people who are focused, calm, sane, and intelligent. I doubt BDOs are looking for that.

According to BBC News:

That sounds like a large part of the flying population. Plus, I am sure a highly educated terrorist is well aware of BDO techniques and how to counter them (if the techniques are effective at all). I would say that a highly educated terrorist probably already has an answer to every TSA tactic and an assessment of the risks presented by each.

Jason Harrington, former TSA clerk, has spoken out again at Politico.com.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...#ixzz2xUra9JJC

�It noted that fewer than 1 percent of the more than 30,000 passengers a year who are identified as suspicious end up being arrested, and that the offenses (like carrying drugs or undeclared currency) have not been linked to terrorist plots.�

People smuggling diamonds, drugs, and currency are NOT a terrorist threat to an aircraft. They do NOT want to fly the plane into a landmark. They want the flight to get to its original destination safely, on time, and in one piece.

TSA causes 300 arrests a year for non terrorist reasons at a cost to the taxpayer of $500,000 per arrest.

I'd trust infants or toddlers' "behavior detection" before I'd trust the TSA or any other "profiling" characters working "security" at airports -- and the young diaper-wearing children don't expect wages/salaries and other employment benefits for the "privilege" of being subjected to their "security" screening and screaming.

Most of the people who have been at monitored "Al-Qaeda" training camps in various parts of Asia and Africa don't come close to anything I would consider middle to upper middle class under an American or British standard of living; nor are they college-educated on average. The average "international terrorist" is more akin to that Kasab idiot captured alive in Bombay during the massacre in November 2009.

This isn't to say that terrorists are all cut of the same cloth and playing SPOT makes sense -- neither holds true.

Indeed. The notion that "international terrorists" are generally operating under duress and thus can be reliably detected that way is a canard -- if it weren't a canard, then most "international terrorists" wouldn't be criminally responsible for their actions to the extent they are, and massive cordon and search operations for militants in hotspots would be less ugly and more effective, timely operations than has been the case generally.

Behavior detection is a valid science, just not the way the TSA is implementing it.

Says who? Show me that law or regulation.

On what basis? Congress hasn't yet passed a law criminalizing stupidity.

If they did, there would be huge number of vacancies in the federal workforce. And especially on Capitol Hill.

Congress has passed various laws criminalizing some kinds of stupidity.

Which behavior detection implementation is a valid science? ROTFLOL