Global_Hi_Flyer

Which is exactly the answer I gave to the three-striper at DCA who started that stuff with me when I opted out.

cptlflyer

I'm not a security expert, so I'm not arguing one way or the other. But, observing an individual's behavior for subtile cues has been used the world over for centuries -- from law enforcement to poker.

Fly El Al, and you'll see it used to an extreme... the difference is that El Al actually racially profiles, which is against U.S. law.

Whether it actually works or not may be a matter of dispute, but that it's been relied-upon heavily, far-and-wide (and yet only in the pilot phase at TSA) sure would indicate to me that there's at least something to it beyond "TSA ineffectiveness at work".

cptlflyer

You might be surprised how much horror we could avoid in this world if people actually just paid a little more attention.

jms_uk

Flew through DTW couple of weeks ago on DL [international>>domestic] and wasn't asked this.

cptlflyer

Again, it's a pilot program... only in BOS & DTW so far, and only at certain checkpoints. If you flew in from an international origin and went through the international reconnect checkpoint, you wouldn't be asked.

Pup7

I think the prime argument here is not just that the scientific validity may be questionable, it's also that based upon prior encounters with TSA agents, two weeks' "specialty training" is never going to produce a reliable practitioner from that particular group. The skill seen with poker players and long-time cops, to include organizations like the FBI, has been honed with extensive training (in the case of law enforcement) and equally extensive experience. And my guess is more reliance is placed on the experience.

I would think two weeks is just long enough to make you dangerous and possibly gives you just enough knowledge to misread nervousness and irritation for guilt and deception.

saulblum

So, what's the metric by which the "success" of this pilot program is measured?

saulblum

What did I misinterpret?

saulblum

I guess the El Al mind-readers must have somehow missed this guy.

I've never understood why so many people view El Al as the ideal.

RadioGirl

I agree. It's a long way from "some people can tell when others are lying" to "any TSA person with two weeks training can identify a terrorist by chatting with passengers in line."

Let's consider the poker example.

First, there's no doubt that a good poker player develops skill in reading signs from other players; indeed, someone who can't develop this skill will never be a great poker player. (TSA, OTOH, believes they can train anyone in 2 weeks.)

Second, the environment is controlled: the whole point of the game is to hide from the others whether you have a good or a bad hand, so everyone knows that some kind of deception is occurring, and those looking for deception are themselves trying to deceive the others. (TSA, OTOH, is working in an environment, as pointed out in the third article I referenced, where 99.99(how long have you got?)99% of passengers are not terrorists, so the chances of finding a genuine Bad Guy is vanishingly low.)

Third, the nature of deception in poker is binary: does he have a good hand or is he bluffing? TSA, OTOH, has to determine some intention to do harm in some unspecified way, with some unspecified device/material/information which may (or may not) be hidden on the passenger or in their bags or already on the airplane or...

Fourth, in a poker game the players' attention - both the observer and the observed - is focused on the game, not on the thousand other details of life. Henry isn't trying to determine whether Fred's nervousness is because he has a bad hand, or whether it's because his Fred is cheating on his wife, embezzling from his company, planning to rob a gas station, worried about his dying mother, scared of playing poker, coming down with the flu or plotting a terrorist attack. TSA, OTOH, deals with passengers facing all sorts of personal issues - good and bad - which may cause excitement, anxiety or stress: meeting a girlfriend, going to a funeral, going on a luxury vacation, leaving a bad marriage, going to a job interview, scared of flying. And they have to find the one in a billion terrorist out of all those ordinary people.

Fifth, as a poker game progresses, the players get immediate feedback about who was bluffing, and can start to relate outcomes to behavioral cues. TSA gets no such feedback, mostly because there are so very few terrorists that they've never been able to relate someone's specific behavior with "they turned out to be the Bad Guy" and partly because they deal with thousands of people, each for a minute or three, rather than spending hours at a poker table with a few other people.

You (cptlflyer, not Pup7) claim that behavior detection has been "relied-upon heavily, far-and-wide" but you can't provide evidence that it's been used with success in the casual, short-encounter, trying-to-find-a-needle-in-a-haystack way that the BDO program is.

In fact, from the GAO 2010 report (pdf):
When considering how many people were arrested out of the total number of passengers (or even out of the total number of people "SPOTted"), the arrest rate is probably similar to what you'd get for just randomly referring people to LE. More importantly, the arrests were for immigration status, fake ids, drugs, etc, not for terrorism. Not one.

Further, you claim that it's "only in the pilot phase at TSA". The 2010 GAO report states that the pilot program started in 2003 at BOS, expanded in 2004/5, then moved from a pilot program to full deployment at 42 airports in 2007. TSA press release from 2006 says that "The goal is to have 800 "BDOs" by the end of 2008." The GAO notes that "As of March 2010, about 3,000 BDOs utilizing SPOT were deployed at 161 of 457 TSA-regulated airports." TSA continually hides its incompetence behind "we're only a new agency"; "we just started this program"; " we haven't trained everyone yet"; "it will take us a while to get it right" but after nearly a decade, it's a little silly to call it a pilot program.

FlyingHoustonian

and as an aside, what is up with the 8 for "undeclared currency"? I presume they mean CBP got someone for a FINCEN 105 violation since there is no rule or law to declare currency during any domestic travel.

I know the TSA has a history of thinking otherwise but I would be curious which law agency actually arrested those 8 people.
Is it burried in the report by any chance? I only see the table on page 44.

RadioGirl

Well, there are two anecdotes (first and third) from TSA on page 45 that describe three undocumented aliens, two of whom had large sums of money which in one case tested positive for drugs, but it doesn't describe any charges in relation to the money.

A global search on the word "currency" only hits on page 44 and 45. Mostly the report is about..., oh, heck, it's so good, let's just quote the GAO itself :
Even TSA admits it hasn't been validated and that no one has validated behavior detection for "large-scale screening." But yeah, they're "pretty sure that it works."

Epod

"My cell leader ordered a face-to-face meeting of all the co-conspirators...no, um, my Grandmother is ill...no, wait, I had it right the first time, ...the cell leader thing."

SeriouslyLost

Hi, I'm from the TSA. Wee've read about your Scientific & Successful (tm) pet rock terror detection programme I'd like to talk to you about having your pet rock train our TSO's in terrorist detection. Would $45 million be enough to start a pilot programme for that?

SeriouslyLost

I find it enthralling that you somehow expect humans to not be, well, human. "Solutions" that require the human race to change are not really... solutions. You might as well announce a cure for the common cold by asking everyone to Just Be Healthier.