$1B TSA Behavioral Screening Program Slammed as Ineffective Junk Science
allgov.com
allgov.com
Then again, the simplest explanation would be that this was just another instance of TSA incompetence.
"I recall going through security at the Charlotte, NC airport once, a few years ago, and noticed TSA agents out in the queue making smalltalk with all of the passengers. "Hey, how are y'all doin' today?", "Goin' someplace warm?", "Be sure to take off that belt buckle sir.", "Were are y'all headed?", "Y'all fly much?", and so forth. At first I thought that this was a misguided effort at public relations. But then it occurred to me that those agents were probably pre-screeners looking for nervous and evasive passengers who would then be subjected to additional traditional screening. I don't know what SPOT is and have no opinion of its effectiveness. But it seems to me that chatting up passengers in order to spot potential trouble-makers is probably the single most effective part of the whole TSA process."
I don't understand this. I assume that its meant from an intuitive 'I feel like this would be effective' standpoint. Because as far as actual effectiveness is concerned, we know that it has stopped 0 attacks. The only way we could know it to be effective is if there were people actually trying to carry out attacks and being caught. Neither of those things are happening, though, so we really can't tell. Thus far, it's just a massive waste of resources.
Really, 9/11 guaranteed that there will never be another airline hijacking for a very, very long time. No passenger will fight with anything less than every fiber of their being to stop any hijacker now. It doesn't matter what kind of weapon you've got, the instant you stand up and say 'I'm taking over this place', you immediately have the entire crew and passengers willing to die to stop you. Before the idea of planes as weapons was tried, everyone presumed a hijacked plane would just fly to Cuba and everyone would be OK. But now that they know the possibility everyone is going to die in an intentional crash, hijackers have no chance.
They had trouble understanding my work allows no personal use of laptops so if I wanted one for development or gaming I had to carry two.
I guess they thought asking the same questions repeatedly would be stressful. They haven't met my wife. :eyewaggle:
So we may just as well say, the TSA is about 100 yrs out of date. But then, not letting people board a plane because you don't like their nose or the way they scratch their head is the only hope of fighting “terror” that we have, isn't it?
Craniology was capable of detecting "Jewish race", so it should probably work with a similar accuracy as the other TSA measures… /s
Do you have anything more about this?
(it also helps that I've got a business visa that says I can stay for 6months at a time)
While the data behind using FACS to spot emotions (EMFACS) is solid (https://books.google.com/books?id=W_npWdrHGFcC&pg=PA47&lpg=P...), the record on using it to spot lies, terrorists, or otherwise discovering the intentions behind those emotions is not good (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/gao-...).
One huge issue is that a scared terrorist looks the same as a scared person singled out for screening, and there are many times more of the latter. This is a specific issue Ekman brings up in his work when using FACS for lie detection. FACS is much better in finding out how someone is feeling rather than what they're thinking. But you need to know intentions to figure out if someone is a terrorist.
"The TSA has insisted on keeping documents about SPOT secret"
The problem here seems to be exactly that we do not "get the facts".
The ACLU seems to have an idea of "how we get the facts", which is why they are suing. From the same page:
"[This] Freedom of Information Act lawsuit is seeking records related to any scientific basis for the program, its effectiveness, and how much minorities are disproportionately singled out."
0: https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-sues-tsa-records...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/21/new-orl...
I don't think the TSA agents should be armed, but I'm sure everyone (even the TSA agents) were happy deputy Slyve was.
The only way you can do that is by completely uprooting society. Any idiot can take a machete to the airport or a schoolyard or any other place where there are a lot of people and act out their ill fantasies.
An airport is actually a really stupid choice exactly because there are a ton of armed officers floating around.
Suicide-by-police officer is a pretty good description of acts like these.
I actually find it irresponsible to fire a weapon in a crowded security line. Two innocent people were shot.
Perhaps because they're security conscious zones and often have heavily armed officers present?
Number of terrorist attacks attempted: 0
Number of terrorist attacks prevented: 0
Number of 'suspected terrorists' screened by TSA: More than 0, with great probability they pick out more than 0 every single day at every single airport.
Trying to stop terrorist attacks (at least in the US) is akin to trying to prevent a lottery winning. The statistics just don't work.
If this number is greater than 0, the number of actual terrorists which existed to be stopped, then we know that it is an ineffective program. If they did identify 0 people, then we know it probably works!
It's like school counselors looking for 'warning signs' of school shooters. If this is a reliable tactic, the counselors would identify 2 or 3 people every several years across the entire US. As it is, they identify dozens of students at every single school every single year - proving that they are monumentally incompetent.
Not a big fan of TSA, so I can reasonably believe that they screwed up, but would like to see at least a little more data if they are going to pull the "Junk Science" card.
"Both Congress’ Government Accountability Office¹ and an independent scientific advisory group² found that there is no evidence that people can identify deception by observing the behavior of others."
Claiming the opposite without showing any proof, like the TSA is doing, looks disturbingly like "junk science" to me.
0: https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-sues-tsa-records...
I still stand by my criticism of the linked to article, of which that quote was not a part.
I think this is great stuff to bring to light.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/what-israeli-air...
Of course you can say "look, the airport is safe, it must be working", but this is no proof.
Moreover, these "security screening processes" you mention look very much like racial profiling to me. The article states that the duration of security interviews is "based on such factors as age, race, religion and destination".
I don't see why doing the same thing and focusing on groups in airports whom are statistically more likely to do harm on airplanes is a bad thing.
The reason why the TSA is a joke is because it is wrapped up in politics and tries to tiptoe around the whole profiling aspect, where if they just focused on behaviour and also people who are more likely to fit the bill of someone whom might commit a crime, a lot of the other annoying crap that comes with screening could go away and still have improved screening results.
Also feel free to explore references outward from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_profiling
Aghhhh!
I'd have done it for half that.
Literally every time I went UK->US 1996 to 2010 I got "randomly" selected by some/all of immigration, security, and customs. I can only assume I looked/behaved dodgy in some way, was on some kind of list, or was just darn unlucky!
Incidents within the EU. Zero.
I've only just got the point where I've stopped scheduling a couple of extra hours of security-slack into my travel schedule ;-)