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TSA's "Behavior Detection Officers"

Posted by kdawson on from the picking-on-an-easy-target dept.

Stanistani sends us to MSNBC for a dyspeptic Newsweek commentary on the TSA's latest attempt to make air travel safer: the rather ominously named "Behavior Detection Officers" now working in a dozen US airports, and slated to go nationwide in 2008. They are trained in the discipline of reading "micro-expressions." The editorialist calls that a pseudo-science, but in fact it's a well-understood skill that can be taught and learned. A cursory look at this TSA program might put one in mind of Orwell's "facecrime," and that's the road the Newsweek writer goes down. Yet some who bemoan the security theater historically run by the TSA point to the gold standard of airport security, Tel Aviv airport, and wonder why TSA officers can't act more like the Israelis. Bruce Schneier wrote recently about one reason why the Israeli security model isn't completely transplantable to these shores: scale. And here's Schneier's take on behavioral profiling from a year ago. That's what the BDOs will be trying for: scrutinizing intent instead of pocket knives. Let's just hope they don't get swamped with false positives.

4 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Let's hope... by robably · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's just hope they don't get swamped with false positives.
    No, let's hope they do. It would be nice if there was some limit to airport security where it becomes impractical to be any more totalitarian, especially as the measures at airports are creeping in to every other part of society.
  2. Oh great, let's emmulate the Israelis. by ahfoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't believe the people on here acting like this is a good thing or that Israeli style air force security is a step in the right direction. I just saw a documentary on how the Israelis routinely cavity search ten year old girls just because they are Palestinians. The intent is not to find anything, but to intimidate them and their families from returning to Israel. Even Israeli citizens, particularly female, who have publicly disagreed with militarist policies are strip searched simply to humiliate them and discourage them from travel.
            That's really where we should be heading in America, is it now? So, since our Palestinians equivalents are the Mexicans then I suppose our lovely new Israeli style airport security policy ought to include strip searching and fondling all young Mexican girls in order to discourage them from travel. I mean after all, that's the example the Israelis offer. It has worked so well for them so far, hasn't it.
            If we really want to stop terrorism, then perhaps we should start by not dropping bombs on foreign countries and killing hundreds of civilians each week. That might be an even more effective method than assigning the gestapo to the airports.

  3. It actually *IS* a pseudo-science by DocJohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The MSNBC commentator called it a pseudo-science because that's exactly what it is.

    There are exactly zero citations in MEDLINE and PsycINFO for a peer-reviewed study done on normal people using this technique. There's one where it was used to help people with schizophrenia learn emotional cues in others. The only other citation was a book chapter (which isn't a study).

    So yes, when you have little or no science in the psychological and medical databases to back up your psychological technique, we call that a pseudo-science -- it's not a real, proven technique.

    And because of this, it definitely should NOT be used at airports. There is a great deal of science showing how lousy humans are at detecting lying, including nonverbal cues.

    --
    Get your psych on: http://psychcentral.com/

  4. Re:Okay, and? by kypper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or a fear of a false positive... because god knows, those delays don't impact or affect you psychologically, nor do they fuck with your schedule and cause you to miss your plane...