For what purpose?

You pretty much are in sync with the rest. Whats the difference between a terrorists behahavior and a felons? Easy question, give up an answer.

In your original question you did not ask what the difference was in their BEHAVIOR you just asked what the difference was. I supplied an answer to your original question.

Not being a trained BDO I would have to make the educated guess that the behavior exhibited by a trained terrorist would have less "tells" than a drug mule. A terrorist believes that what they are doing is right even if they have to hide those actions. A drug mule knows what they are doing is wrong and therefore will exhibit more overt "tells".

I know you are proud of your training, but honestly your training is based on junk science. You can no more tell that a person is exhibiting "tells" based on nefarious "nervousness" than you can someone that is exhibiting "tells" based on other stimuli.

I would wager that I could, without training, be able to SPOT at the same rate of success or hirer than most of your BDOs.

All your training has taught you is to pull your head out and pay attention to your surroundings and to go with your gut feeling.

Sorry to sound so harsh but your (BDOs) error rate is too high to be considered a science.

Now that I have answered your clarified question please answer mine.

For what purpose do you look for a collection of behavior?

Unfortunately this is the moment we have seen with TSO Ron and a few other TSA employees. They know the answer to the question and that it won't help them prove they are right. The answer Dude is trying not to give is;
BDOs are designed to detect individuals exhibiting behaviors that indicate they may be a threat to aviation and/or transportation security. This was taken from the TSA BDO press release.

So Dude, who is the greater risk to airline security the terrorist or a possible felon?

A collection of displayed behaviors would indicate a higher level of stress or fear. There is no difference between a terrorist and a felons behaviors. Race, religion, male, female, training, it doesnt matter. Stress and fear dont change because of what that person is trying to accomplish. The possibility of failing is what brings out the behaviors. You spoke of error rate.Compared to what? The checkpoints? Please. There are no other programs in place to compare it to. A collection of behaviors is what is is. There is no way to deduce intent without futher investigating why. Some people are just plain scared of flying, but those behaviors exhibited could be the same as the felons. Behaviors are instinct, you can hide one but others will pop out before you realize it. Like I said, having spent a couple of years doing this job it is not exactly junk science. This program has had way better results than the checkpoint circus.

Still did not answer my question, but the correct answer was provide for you in the post above yours.

Higher levels of stress and fear is normal at an airport. Most people do not fly very often so the stress of not finding their way to the right place, worry that the TSA may find contraband that you did not know was contraband, general excitement or dread about the trip, fear of flying or crowds, not knowing where the bathroom is, can all contribute to "tells".

Has any BDO caught a "terrorist" that was planning to do something to the aircraft they were attempting to board? The Jamaican does not count as he was planning on killing someone when he got to Jamaica, not do harm to the plane.

There are too many false positives in your work to be a science.

I will grant you this, the fear of failure (being caught and punished) will make amateur bad guys "sweat". Pros do not exhibit that behavior. So yes training will suppress the "tells".

^ If it is junk science then why would someone be need to suppress their behavior?

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So what you are doing is junk science, you have no way to distinguish between nervous terrorists and nervous passengers. Which makes any searches of passengers luggage a fishing expedition.


Do you have any statistics to back that up? Given the high failure rate of checkpoints from Red Team tests that is an easy claim to make.

I will ask the question again, how do you tell the difference from an observation. Are you stating that terrorists act differently? How do you know this?

With the least of supervsion and multi-million dollar widgets. Yes, time will tell.

If you had actually read my post and used the link you would have noticed that the quote is from the TSA's description of BDO. Thats what the your employer states what your job is. Trying reading this LINK. Are you telling me that you can't tell the difference or you are unable to perform your job the way your employer wants it done?

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You can't and that is what makes it junk science. You admit that you can not tell the difference between a nefarious and non nefarious passenger based on twitches and tics.

At best you use this as an excuse to engage the person in conversation. That may induce an "aw s--t" response in a nefarious person, IF they have not been trained by experience or actual training to suppress the "aw s--t" response.

Like I said before "All your training has taught you is to pull your head out and pay attention to your surroundings and to go with your gut feeling."

That still does not change the fact that your job is to go fishing in hopes you catch a terrorist.

So how many terrorists has the BDO program caught?