Behavioral detection gone awry
 

A good friend of mine just had a terrible experience at Detroit. She is a Midwesterner living on the East Coast, a highly-educated professional, attractive, usually well-dressed, and mild-mannered. She was visiting her parents and flying home. Nonstop, domestic flight. She did not have any problems with Secure Flight or watch lists.

She is a frequent flyer, and has taken the same trip many times. Her name, demeanor, accent, clothing, etc. are unmistakably American.

She is not prone to exaggeration, and doesn't usually complain about airport security. She happened to mention this to me because she knows that I fly a lot.

After uneventful check-in and ID inspection, she went to get in line for the x-ray and metal detector.

A BDO pulled her out of line, and she was taken to an interview room. She was told that her behavior "aroused suspicion" (perhaps not in those words.) The BDO and another agent conference called some TSA phone number. They asked her repeatedly about the nature of her trip, how often she'd lived at each address, the nature of her work, her father's birthdate, her mother's maiden name, and... my favorite... the last four digits of her FATHER's social security number. (She said, "How would I know that?")

She was eventually released and allowed to fly. I don't know if she had selectee screening, but I think that's probably likely.

I used to think that behavioral profiling made some sort of sense. But now I'm reconsidering. The best I can imagine is that the BDO's are new, newly trained, and want to test out their skills.

They may have actually picked her just because it would be less work: she's young, articulate, etc... so the background check would be simpler and they could act as if they're doing something. (In random screening, it's easier to pick the guy with a small bag and light clothing.)

She's not a complainer, and just wanted to get home. But I find this incident troubling. Of course I wasn't there, perhaps my friend had completely gone nuts and was acting erratically (I strongly doubt that.) There may have been a specific threat about young women traveling alone, as there was prior to Pan Am 103 (I doubt that as well... and there are a lot of women traveling alone through Detroit.)

I hope that this was a one-time incident.

This was deduced on FT some time ago. That people were detained for secondary screening because they were less likely to refuse, than that they were actually suspicious. Sad commentary indeed.

One-time for her hopefully, but I'm certain other passengers are subjected to this bull on a daily basis.

Behavioral profiling does not work in an airport termianl environment. At best, it may be useful as an adjunct to conducting interviews; for picking people out of a line up it is useless even for trained, competent practitioners. The TSA's "officers" don't come close to that definitiion.

"None of your business." Would they still let me fly?

She should've told them where to go.

TSA could place people in the terminals with crystal balls and get the same results.

These TSA employees know perfectly well that nobody they interview is a terrorist or ever will be. They know it's all for show, and they choose people for their own reasons. Attractive women are an obvious choice.

Bruce

And they would have told her where she was going to stay.

One of the many broken things about the TSA is that they have unchecked power. You have no recourse. They can search your bags, even looking through papers. They can point to almost anything and say you can't take it through security. Pointing out that their published rules allow it can get you detained and threatened with arrest. Even if they can't make it stick, they can easily make you miss your flight. And probably get commended for doing it.

All of those rights and protections you heard about as a kid -- forget them. If you want the "privilege" of traveling, you have to agree that constitutional protections do not apply.

That would be an interesting question.

My gut reaction would be not. And if it were me in that situation, I would be taking names and taking said names to court. BDO's don't have QI.

This is exactly how this was expected to work. Since they cannot find terrorists, these workfare recipients will spend their time on other people, including the "objects" of their desire or hate.

..... yet another reason to pick up the phone and talk at airports.

I won't be interrupting my phone calls to waste my time to satisfy a BDO clown's useless curiosity.

I don't use a crystal ball, but I'd be willing to bet that I could do 100% better! :D

Besides being absolutely useless (how would they know if she's telling the truth or just making up answers?), a number of those questions are used for security purposes (banking websites, etc.). I would feel very uncomfortable sharing that kind of info with someone who already has my name and possibly my address.

I'm actually looking forward to one of the BDO's trying to play games with me. After I politely give them nothing, I'll pull out my credentials and ask for their names and their supervisors names, and we'll see who ends up getting a commendation. ;)

The typical traveler has no government credentials to pull out. What would you suggest to those of us in that position?