Article: TSA to focus on passenger behavior now
 

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...195330,00.html

This might be good news for the shoe carnival.

:td: If it comes to pass, it will be my worst nightmare.

This will take harassment to a new level. :(

I suspect that "selection" based on "behavior" will be a demonstration of even more of the usual idiocy observable at airports.



.... and if this goes into place, I want lots of cameras at the airports and ALL of the video footage to be public domain, with all footage being stored for at least 7 years and all of that available, on demand, to any and all members of the general public.

Wait! Isn't the TSA already "conducted by trained personnel and closely monitored by supervisors" now?

This will be a catastraphy! They will hold people while they do background checks?

Get me a lawyer!

If this program is in place in BOS, it must be SPOTTY given that less than a month ago, in the first class screening line for AA @ Terminal B, the WTMD guy was shouting, 'We're looking @ ALL shoes today, folks'. The look on the face of the guy in front of me was priceless as he turned around to take off his shoes, but probably would have earned him a SPOT check had the specially trained SPOTTER SPOTTED it..

BTW-should we even try to guess how much some over paid consultant got for coming up w/the catchy title of SPOT?

Completely assinine.

Just another excuse to push people around and hassle the nonterrorists among us.

Apologists, of course, will disagree.

:td: :td: :td:

Idiots!!!

Not one terrorist mentioned.

.... and this was supposed to be about aviation security, right? :confused:

All the poor nervous nellie type flyers, first time flyers, disoriented old people will be the ones who will suffer from this program, not any well-trained potential terrorist.

Hope no one missed this in the article:

"Earlier this month TSA screeners not trained in the SPOT program pulled over three Marines in dress uniform for special screening. After being patted down and scrutinized closely, the Marines were finally let go and allowed to continue their duties — escorting the body of one of their colleagues killed in Iraq."

"changes in mannerisms" - don't you have to know a person's previous mannerisms before you can say that he/she has changed mannerisms?

This new focus might explain why I've been hearing more of the "engaging" questions from TSA the last couple of trips, especially when I decline their invitation to remove my non-profile shoes.

I'm fine with "have you enjoyed your stay", "nice weather we're having" types of questions, but draw the line at some of the more personal questions like, "where's home", "are you on a business or pleasure trip", etc. Within the borders of the US, what would be the repercussions of declining to answer those questions that I felt were none of TSA's business?

Answering a question with a question is always fun.

"Where's home?" "Come on, give me your best guess." "Nope." :D
"What was the purpose of your trip?" "Come, give me your best guess." "Not exactly." :D

... and so on.

And My Responses to TSA "Profiling" Questions
 

Yes. Until NOW.

Good for you. I hate this weather.

None of YOUR business.

Pleasure. Weren't you the pole dancer at the club? Hmmm...you sure took pleasure to a whole new level...

:mad: :mad: :mad:
Bad idea, TSA. Get your priorities right. Start off with a low hanging fruit - consistency. And no, being consistently inept and bad is NOT consistent.

It was supposed to be but evidently it is turning into something else. :mad:

Yes, right
 

"Here's how it works (on paper): Select TSA employees will be trained to identify suspicious individuals who raise red flags by exhibiting unusual or anxious behavior, which can be as simple as changes in mannerisms, excessive sweating on a cool day, "

changes in mannerisms: as has been noted, how do you detect a change in manerism the first time you see a person? Answer: You and TSA can't. Whatever that person is doing the first time you see them, that is their normal behavior as far as your observations are concerned. Period.

anxious behavior: How many pax are always anxious as they have a little fear of flying, fear of missing their connection if this TSA line does not move a lot faster, fear of not having enough time to stop by the CRC if this screening line does not move faster, fear of germs from the shoeless walk thru the MD, fear of having a screener paw through a bag and hold up in public a plastic object, declaring to the Xray op "No threat, just another battery operated Vibrating Personal Relaxation Device"? :D

excessive sweating on a cool day: Has the writer of these rules ever flown commercial recently? As in: I have a 40 min connection at LAX(I know, dumb as booking a 30 min DL connection in ATL at 5 PM on a Friday, but this is my hypothetical example, I reserve the right to be hypothetically dumb;) ), my plane was 10 min late, I just ran from terminal 5 to terminal 2 and am trying to go thru screening, darn right I'm sweating when its a cool day.

In addition to regular shoe carnival, SSSS and existing rules, this new rule makes almost every PAX qualify to be stopped I mean SPOTted in this "non race profileing program".

The look of the woman in the article is priceless :D

However, this is unacceptable:

According to Naccara, the SPOT program has resulted in the arrest of more than 50 people for having fake IDs, entering the country illegally or drug possession.

None of the above have anything to do with aviation safety or security.

Some sheeple will go along with this, but I am going to suspect about 10-15% of people, already fed up with the TSA, will return very hostile answers to these questions. Whereas I am not going to be rude to a screener who asks me questions, I am not going to answer - my answers will be fairly standard: "sorry, but that is not your concern and I am not going to answer your questions"

If I am sent to a LEO for interrogation for refusing to answer, I will be contacting the ACLU and I expect them to persue this...if they don't step up to the plate this time, they have become a useless organization and we need new people on the scene who are willing to stand up for privacy and liberty.

A big :td: :td: :td: to this...we need to clean this "SPOT" up.

.....Here's how it works: Select TSA employees will be trained to identify suspicious individuals who raise red flags by exhibiting unusual or anxious behavior, which can be as simple as changes in mannerisms, excessive sweating on a cool day....
god help us all as well as the poor slob who is gets to the airport late and has to run in order to not miss their flight but must now stand in the security line sweating and constantly looking at their watch-

Maybe this will finally get the Ma and Pa Kettles of the "anything for security" bandwagon.

And I can see this being abused for people who don't put up with the shoe carnival too. :td: :mad:

I can just see this now:

TSA: Sir, please remove your shoes.
Pax: They're less than an inch, so they're not profile and they have no metal.
TSA: Sir, you're copping an attitude. Please step thru to secondary for a clearance interview and background check. It should only take about 30 minutes until you're cleared to fly. Have a nice flight, if you don't miss it.

Yes you are right the look is priceless.

As for catching the fake ID's, drug runners, they actually have something to do with security, but absolutelynothing to do with aviation security. Catching these folks belongs to the province of law enforcment.

As for the questions, when are they actually going to do the questioning. Is this when I step up to the WTMD. Hmmm. maybe I will play mute, or claim laringitus. Of course I just could claim my 5th Amendment, that should be fun. Or maybe a lawyer or two could set up shop at the airport, and for everyone who is pulled aside asks for a lawyer, they have to stop the questioning until he/she gets there.

This may be part of what the rumor I have heard about the possible end of the SSSS program. Resulting in complete randomness at the checkpoint with the watchlist acting as a buffer to catch the "bad people" at checkin.

Of course what I would like to do with this is to take Spot and leave a spot on their SPOT.

"This system is conducted by trained personnel and closely monitored by supervisors," he says. "It provides another significant layer of security."

Significant? Security? :confused:

How many more words will TSA feel the need to redefine? :(

Are these the same "trained personnel" and supervisors that are currently running the circus? :mad:

They performed a test of this during the holidays, by having a uniformed TSA person stand behind the ticket/ID checker. Based on observing the passengers in line, the TSA people pulled over 500 people of interest and asked them questions. They were then either sent on their way, sent to secondary, or sent to secondary and an LEO was called. About 30 out of the 500 were found to be up to "something (mostly drugs, but some people with "too much" money), though none were terrorists.

They're adamant that the program does not use race, and that using race as a factor harms its effectiveness.

When they insist upon such, I'd like to have them make available back-up evidence too. That's why I'd insist on camera footage and all of it being in the public domain.

I'd also like to find out the demographic details (and more) about the 30 that got "tagged" and about the 500 that were selected for questioning.

Given the TSA's high-profile celebratory nature when they actually catch something, the silence about this program up until now speaks volumes about its "effectiveness."

I have a few comments on the photo in the article.

1. Suspicious -- the "subject" had on a jacket in Phoenix. Must be up to something.

2. Her eyes -- she is enjoying the pat down waaaay to much. Ze must be up zu somezing [sic].

the big problem here is that you have incompetent people being told what to do....

If people (who are not idiots) were properly trained, it might be a decent program. It isn't. This is when people who won't stand to have their shoes removed become a "threat", and will be forced into a more intense search.

And in their fervent zealousness to ensure they don't look like they're using race and to show that using race would be harmful (even though they almost certainly have not done an objective study to determine if race would be a useful qualifier), they will almost certainly pull aside otherwise non-suspicious white people for questioning and decline to pull aside "suspicious" looking "middle-eastern" types.

Sounds to me mainly like this is another excuse for them to deny legitimate claims of mistreatment by innocent passengers as there's no way more than one in a thousand pax will actually be doing something suspicious enough to warrant such investigation. (And in those cases, I'd rather the TSA leave it to the pros and let the LEOs do their job.)

They won't "decline to pull aside 'suspicious' looking 'middle-eastern' types"; they'll pull such people over anyway and then hide what they are doing by bothering non-"middle eastern" types to make it seem like they are not doing racist profiling; and when called out on racist profiling, they'll use the non-"middle eastern" types to make the numbers look good and defend their inherently wrong actions.

I hear (though I haven't looked for it) that there was a big article about it in USA Today at some point.

The program has been very limited to date, so there aren't too many catches to publicize, I'd imagine.

Well, they are requiring TSA people to apply to be part of the program, so theoretically they'll only be taking the "best."

I understand that there is some scientific evidence to back up the effectiveness of these techniques, though I haven't looked for it. Since they're behavioral, race is not useful.

Is THAT what they were doing in DFW (and apparently still are) as I wrote about a few months back? I wondered what the TSA was doing "helping" with the ID checking. I must not have been suspicious looking because I wasn't pulled aside.

I did go through a "demo" of sorts of this last year when the MA State Troopers introduced the program that had been in use at BOS for a while. It was interesting but I didn't get a feeling for how effective it would be. The question of profiling came up and the Trooper skirted it very smoothly.

If all TSA can brag about is how many "regular" crooks they have been catching, I don't think this is a program suitable for TSA. They should be looking at transportation security and leave the rest to regular LEO. There is a very thin line around the "general consent" to screening and I'm afraid this can very well cross that line.

Agree with the second part but not the first.

In the months following 9/11 when random pullasides and gate checks were much more common (even without SSSS), there were all kinds of media reports from airport security workers of them being told from above not to avoid intentionally extra screening for arabs or "middle-eastern-lookng" types even if they were "suspicious," because it would give the appearance of racial profiling and generally look bad. There were also stories that some checkpoints were given "quotas" of the maximum number of arabs or "middle-eastern-looking" types they could pull aside over a given timeframe.

This was the same era when flight crews and elderly people were even more likely to be pulled aside because screeners would look like they were "fighting terrorism" but knew these groups were least likely to complain.

A problem with any racially-aware policy (law-enforcement, hiring, whatever) is that because of the sensitivity of the issue it becomes an excessive focus of the implementers, often to the detriment of the "non-protected" categories. I've often wondered how many times LEOs in districts accused of racial profiling conciously decide, "OK, it's time to pull over a white guy so my numbers look better," and then harass the next white guy that comes along for no reason other than his race.

"It's been very effective overseas."

Hmmm...

"That's all the questions I have. Gate 16, Mr. Reid. Have a pleasant flight. Please keep your carry-on luggage with you at all times. Nice shoes."

Did you really mean to use a double negative-type phrasing there with security workers "told from above not to avoid intentionally extra screening" "arabs" & "middle easterners"? As it is stated, it could be read by some to indicate that security screeners were given the "wink-wink, nod-nod" to go ahead and intentionally extra screen like xenophobes, which is exactly what they did. But I don't think that is what you are saying. Could you please restate that without the double negative-type phrasing which can lead to ambiguity?

Anecdotal news reports being just that, the number of frequent traveling males cross-referenced as being "Middle Eastern" and aged between the ages of 18-40 (or something like that) that flew out of DCA on one airline on one route were far more likely to be selected for additional gate-area screening than any other demographic group sampled and found to have similar travel patterns.

Also, the number of phone calls from airports that were handled by certain FBI field offices on matters that appear to have been related to people of "Middle Eastern" "origin" flying out of certain airports jumped up while calls from those same airports related to people not of "Middle Eastern" origin didn't seem to have skyrocketed in number.

This "behavioral profiling" idiocy will, in effect, be much the same, with selection based on xenophobia and then a lot of "easy targets" (e.g., elderly, flight crews "'accustomed' to the routine", etc.) to make it seem like xenophobia hasn't infected America.

Contrary to reports about "Middle Eastern" types being a "protected category", such persons are anything but a "protected" category when it comes to selection by security idiocy at airports (i.e., the haraSSSSment-producing engines, various blacklists, picked on by ignorant xenophobes at airports, etc.).

Even if security were given a maximum quota of the absolute number of "Middle Eastern" types that can be subjected to this nonsense per day, that number wouldn't rule out such types of persons from being selected 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, or even 10x more often. The only meaningful quota that would have the meaning you may be giving to it would be one that said that not more than X% of all "Middle Eastern" paxs at a particular airport may be selected on a given day and that X% was the same percentage as applicable to the majority/dominant ethnic group(s) too. That kind of numbers-based real opposition to xenophobic security selection won't happen this time either, and we'll just get more of the "wink-wink, nod-nod" xenophobia in action; and with this (like that), it'll be with the same kind of anecdotal news reports that mislead in such a way as to annoy the people who believe in racist profiling while making the "do-good-feel-good" (and "lip service") crowd believe that xenophobia hasn't infected more of us than it has.

Deleted

What "panicked posts"? Opposing idiocy does not equate with panic.

About the "intentionally avoiding eye contact", that's not necessarily true in Latin and "Arab"/"Middle Eastern" cultures. I've spent my fair amount of time -- and then some -- immersed in such cultures and I don't much see that "intentionally avoiding eye contact" thing as systematically routine in most all Latin and Arab majority areas. And isn't minimizing contact with LEOs/security people who may focus "on me" more or less common even in the US? If the cops go to your neighbor's house, the busy bodies in the neighborhood will be curious, right? You think the people getting the unsolicited visit in the US are going to want the visit, whether at home or not? I have my doubts that all people -- in the US too -- welcome unsolicited drop-ins/interactions with the cops/security folks.

Deleted

So you claim, but you may be surprised yet again regarding the former (and other matters too).

Opposing idiocy does not equate with panic. So what "panicked posts" in this thread are you trying to talk about?

When I'm stubborn, then I am. That's called both having principles and using common sense even in the face of idiocy. Nothing to do with panic.

Different perspectives and experiences? Certainly in some regards and then some. And in any event, I would hope so. I've visited places -- sometimes even the same place -- in various capacities, and not all -- or even most -- would qualify as "pleasure" either.

My point -- amongst others -- is that cultural factors don't trump individual or biological factors. That's the first rule of trying to understand human behavior and it "must be considered before attempting to interpret any human behavior."

Also, given these "behavior" based screenings are looking for "social" exceptions, there's the intrinsic assumption anti-social elements and other sociopaths are obviously identifiable in their doing more routine functions or that they do not understand how "the rest" operate. And there's no guarantee that is the case either -- especially not with terrorists, many of whom may not even be considered anti-social but for in the aftermath of a criminal act.

HA!

This deserves the

:-: :-: POST OF THE WEEK AWARD :-: :-:

Good one, Mats.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Deleted

This is going to be very interesting for me. I intentionally avoid making eye contact with screeners, TSA people, etc. I found this to be an extremely effective way to avoid being pulled out for secondary gate screening back when they were doing that. The first few flights I took after 9/11, I sat in the gate area and specifically watched to see if there was any pattern to getting selected. The only one I came up with was that the people who made eye contact or smiled or somehow acknowleged the screeners were the ones who got picked. The people who focused on their boarding passes, their carryons, their companions or just stared off into space hardly ever were selected for additional screening.

I am, for the most part, not interested in making conversation with strangers and generally do whatever I can to avoid it. So if someone from TSA attempts to engage me in conversation, they're going to get the same response anyone else gets: the cold shoulder. I'm curious whether avoiding eye contact will continue to be effective as it was before.

They did it at a number of airports; not sure if DFW was one of them, but that's what this sounds like.

The problem is twofold: (1) the techniques can't tell the difference between someone smuggling drugs or nervous about having "too much" money on them and (2) there are almost no terrorists, but lots of other people doing other potentially illegal stuff.

So what you end up with is a lot of catches of people who are no threat to aviation security. Since I don't favor using the TSA as an arm of the DEA, I've got mixed feelings on such a program.

Actually, as I understand it, it was the behavioral profiling people who said that something was not right with this guy - two days in a row - but the airport security people said he was OK to fly over their objections and let him on.