I hear alot on here about how the TSA should use the interview process for passengers and behavioral profiling for risk management. I have a question to proffer: Isnt this the ultimate form of discretion? There is a lot of talk about abuses of authority by TSA on this board. However it appears to me that using this method of risk management ultimately puts things up for grabs on the part of the screener making that decision. Retaliatory screening would still be an issue would it not?

Behavioral profiling is used at BOS but it is done by the PD (MA State Troopers, if I remember correctly), not TSA.

I have only heard the LEO side of it, and they believe it is a fantastic system to select travelers for additional screening. They claim an interview can determine if a person, who at a first glance looks "suspicious", really needs additional screening, or not.

They are also very quick to point out, though, that this method requires additional training of the interviewers and that the TSA screeners, with current training, would absolutely not be the persons to conduct these interviews.

If the interviewers are trained properly I see no problem with this. It would actually be an improvement over the present criteria to select a traveller for additional screening. It would be very interesting to hear from an FTer who has experienced this at BOS.

Well if memory serves me right, the FSD or head of security at BOS is Israeli. I believed he worked for El AL or was in some form of security at TLV airport. Therefore, I would assume that the process used at BOS is similar to the one used at TLV, but it may not be as extensive given the larger number of people that travel through BOS than through TLV on any given day.

Thus I would assume the process involves using a series of questions all looking for a/n (in)consistancy in the persons stories. They may ask the question in several ways many times. They often feed off of your answers by asking questions that seem off topic, but do provide a good idea if the person who is in front of them is honest, has been prepped or is working off a bogus background. There comes a point in questioning where the bogus story starts to fall apart. (the person does not know enough to respond naturally, and the answers start to involve a pause or more stuttering, that was exhibited before). Here is my thoughts on how the interview may go.

Security [S]: May I please see your ticket/BP and Identification.
Traveler [T]: Oh, ok. Handing over information
S: Mr. Traveler, I see that you have a MN DL and are flying down to MIA. Can you tell me what the purpose of this trip is?
T: I am a __________. And was up here on business and am going down to MIA for a meeting with a customer.
S: So why aren't you going back to MN first?
T: It was cheaper to fly direct, and I really don't feel like sitting on a plane for 8 hours.
S: So where were you working while in BOS?
T: Says where they were working. (location).
S: And where did you stay while you were here?
T: Says location
(Here is an area where a problem could come out, location of hotel not near the work location).
S: Isn't that far from where you were working? Why did you stay there and not some where closer. (This can be a false question, the hotel could be close and the interviewer is looking for the traveler to refute this, or it could actually be far away)
T: Actually, it wasn't that far away, maybe a block or two further than some other hotels. But my company tells me to stay in X chain hotel, and this was the closest to the site.
S: Ok, thanks. Have a nice flight.

In other situations. The interviewer can come back to a question you answered earlier, but change a fact in it. What he is looking for is consistancy and if you have been prepared for the questions. That is why questions will often seemingly bounce all over the place. The goal is to throw off the person who has been coached what to say. I have been asked in the interviews in TLV, after I said I was visiting friends, "Did you enjoy your time with your cousins?" Basically this was a test to see if I remembered what I had said in the past to them after they have led me down another path. Basically, I would assume BOS uses a scaled down approach to this process. In fact when I do a deposition, I often use a very similar tactic to get conflicting statements from the witness. It is very effective.

What would happen after responding to question 1, the person being questioned said: "None of your business" - which is basically what I think I would answer.

Asking questions will fail often enough ..... especially when the answer is the "truth" full of omissions.

And even if Qs & A-observations worked at airports, there are all those "targets" outside the airport.

Often enough, school-assigned police officers' "behavioral profiling" fails even when used in conjunction with a supplied list of "troublemakers". I see no reason why this would be a magic bullet when the "list" of "troublemakers" that airport security uses is already so messed up.

IMHO,

If trained properly, an interviewer can gain a great deal of information from questioning a passenger and then decide if additional screening is warranted. I have never been off of North America, so I do not have first-hand experience with El Al. But from everything I have read and heard, their security is very effective. I realize that the volume of passengers in the U.S. is far greater than the volume in Israel, but some of the Israeli security practices could be adopted here. If nothing else, using behavioral profiling/interviewing along with current TSA screening would address many of the criticisms that TSA passenger screening is just a dog and pony show. The key is training.

In a situation where the screening is done by the airline (their contractor), the airport authority, or law enforcement you have basically two choices. Answer the questions completely and fully, or don't fly, enter the building, or whatever they are guarding/protecting. Actually their is a third option. They may subject you to the full monty screening. It all depends on the desired result of the screening. If it is to determine who gets a secondary or closer look their may be no "real" harm from not answering other than a secondary. However, if it is used to determine who gets to fly or not, then you have to answer if you want to fly. At least from what I remember in TLV, or any other Israeli flight. The interviews are done prior to even getting to a ticket counter to get a BP. So if you refuse to answer the questions you don't get a BP. I also remember if you had a pre-issued BP you had a special area to go to so that you could get the sticker on the BP that allowed you to go to immigration and security. My feeling is that BOS uses it to determine who gets secondary/further consideration. This is very effective if the people are well trained. If they are not well trained then it is a giant disaster ripe for abuse.

From my experience. You can usually tell when the truth has ommisions. It is just a way people tend to phrase things. Most people tend to embelish their answers a little bit. They say a little more than what was asked. Very rarely do you come across a person, who hasn't been prepped, when asked a question requiring more than a yes or no answer, who provides an answer that is stagnet. In other words, rarely will you get answers that provide minimal information. And in those cases you ask for more information. By asking for more information, the ommision becomes harder to keep out. It all becomes a matter training.

And yes I agree there are more "targets" than airports. Will this keep us absolutely safe, no. Nothing will. We need to learn to accept some risk in living our day to day lives.

In the end, I am not sure which of the systems works best, or I am willing to accept. Randomness works only to a limited extent. It removes the predictablity from the system. Interviews work to a better extent, but are time and labor extensive. I think a workable solution would possibly involve interviews for SSSS candidates, and a random group of the regulars. The SSSS (or what ever it is in the future) would still get the secondary while those in the random group who don't raise alarms would be able to go through. After a period of time we should see how the process worked. i.e. did the random group that is redirected to secondary contain anymore on a % basis of bad things than any other population. Just a thought.

I used to think that the El Al system was brillinat. But I wonder how much of it is mystique and how much of it is reality.

I once read that El Al's security agents have local traffic reports. An interviewer might ask, "How was the traffic on 95?" If the passenger says it was smooth but there was a massive pile-up in the traffic report, the index of suspicion goes up.

Moreover, some of the interviews for US airlines in Europe and the erstwhile "three questions" were largely designed to identify the naive passenger carrying dangerous materials without his or her knowledge. There have been only two sabotage incidents involving naive or partially-naive passengers, so I wonder if this was a misguided approach.

After the Richard Reid incident, I rethought the value of the interviews. Reid, after all, was interviewed twice by ICTS agents prior to boarding.

Right now, the TSA is struggling to remain even remotely consistent and thoughtful with basic screening techniques. I don't think that a meaningful behavioral profiling plan will be logistically or financially plausible for quite some time.

I've toyed with El Al "questioning" in BOM and TLV but apparently they didn't catch on. Then again, maybe they thought I was boring.

Richard Reid was "bounced" by the "interviewers". FWIW or not worth, PKK terrorists have not been "bounced" by El Al "interviewers".

The questioning of this kind is idiotic. You get so many false positives that you can only do this where you don't have a lot of traffic. For example a lot of colleagues who fly a lot have NO idea how far the hotel is from the place they're working as they cab everywhere and don't pay attention, the best they could do it say it cost me 20 dollars to get a cab. Lots of people are nervous about flying, immigration and security anyway so being flustered, stammering or getting things mixed up is not an unlikely occurance. I've seen people harassed at airports for forgetting the hotel they stayed at, and this is only going to get worse if they can be denied a flight for getting things wrong. Finally, I am one of the people who throws reciepts etc away when I pack my bags (unless they're needed for expenses) so I'd rarely be able to prove I'd stayed in hotel X, eaten at restaurant Y or been in cab Z which gets you extra attention.

I'm not saying that intelligent questioning doesn't have a place, but once you start to do it, say, at ORD or LAX on a busy holiday weekend, you're going to back up the queues and cause huge delays for everyone. Given the fact that babies are being given a hard time because they appear on no-fly lists, I have no faith that these could be implemented in the US in a useful fashion.

First, I've flown out of BOS a few times in the past year or so and have never seen anyone being asked any questions by anyone. One can print their boarding pass online or with a kiosk and get to the gate without saying a word. So, as far as I can tell, there's no behavioral profiling going on there.

Second, I don't see these kinds of interviews as being realistic. People already complain about long lines and the TSA being too large and expensive. Imagine what the lines and TSA budget would be like if they gave everyone a 1 - 10 minute interview at the checkpoint, and imagine how many more agents would be necessary. Just doesn't seem like it's something that we could actually enact - regardless of how effective it would be.

I'm not surprised the LEOs think it 'fantastic' - gives them the ability to get in your face without even a token nod to PC. A competent terrorist/hijacker isn't going to look "suspicious" in the first place anyway, witness the tape of Atta going through security.

I've never been SSSSed, but I'm starting to think it might be the least of the evils. I'm not taking off my shoes and I'm not answering any damnfool intrusive questions, so just select me for secondary and I'll be on my way. Have a nice day and thank you.

I'd assume the interviewer had made a mistake & meant to say "friends", so would reply as if they'd said "friends". Guess I'll be off to Gitmo

Well, for LY this type of risk-analysis works beautifully. After all, not too many LY planes have been flown into 100-story buildings/hijacked/etc. In fact, after the LY hijacking in the '60s and the implementation of LY's security procedures, there have been no successful hijackings/bombings.

You may have wanted to say that "this type of security is necessary for a state such as Israel, however it would not be feasible in the USA." On 9/11, LY's security system would have caught the individuals. The only way it could be implemented though would be to profile passengers. Something I personally agree with, as 90 year-olds and 10 year-olds are not exactly the terrorist type. But the ACLU would have a field day if those who fit terrorist profiles were actually profiled. Personally I say **** PC. But then again, I don't fancy making it any easier for terrorists to strike.

They probably did... and in the future I would not "toy" with them (lest getting an op-up will be the least of your problems)


A slight overreaction?