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Airport Profilers Learn to Read Facial Expressions
nldavepc writes "There has been a rather scary development in airport security. Airport profilers are watching people's facial expressions for clues of terrorist intent. According to the article,"Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.""
I think he just gave me a terrorist look!
story from slashdot in August?
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
Do you Americans realize that you are heading towards a totalitarian regime?
Play more poker.
Did yo know they even track what kind of bagage you check in and what clothes you wear and match it to your trip data? A suit going for 2 days to NY with minimal bagage= ok. Same suit going to Hawai for 2 days with minimal bagage = trouble...
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I got a better idea, how about checking id before getting on the plane? All they do now is scan your boarding pass. Anyone could have anyone's boarding pass and get on any plane, from what it looks like.
stuff |
*imagines the airport customs*
...its a lady, is that a mustage? - Oh heck...arrest her anyway.
I bet hes a criminal.
Man, thats ONE scary looking bastard, and look at THAT...He has a mustage
No
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Well if the TSA keeps up to their perfect track record of successfully locating bomb components in people's luggage, I'm sure we are now as safe as one can possibly imagine!
The article doesn't say what the training for this job involves, but I'm sure it's at LEAST two whole weeks...
=Smidge=
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called."
-- 1984 by George Orwell
Zero tolerance equals zero intelligence
"Don't FACE me, bro!"
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
"How are you today?"
"Where are you heading?"
"Is this all your property?"
"It's almost irrelevant what your answers are..." That's because I'm not a black grandma carting a bunch of grandkids around.
This holiday, every person that I saw pulled out for secondary screening was an elderly black woman with a bunch of little kids. "We're looking for behavior indicators that show a certain level of stress, fear or anxiety above and beyond that shown by an anxious member of the traveling public." Wow! What a fantastically detailed legal threshold for a full body search! The TSA considers the program a powerful tool to root out terrorists, but also an antidote to racial profiling. ..."Not!"
Terrorists have they caught? While you couldn't put a price on the value of catching one, really would be nice to know. Guessing I would say about what, 100 million per terrorist caught? Think just putting a price on their head would be cheaper. But really its probably all political smoke to dump money into some politician's buddy's back pocket.
Solution: Stay away from America ... if they keep going the way they're going that probably wont be such a sacrifice!
"... always going forward 'cause we cant find reverse! "
Honestly this is awful. From TFA -
... there are behavior cues that show it. ... A brief flash of fear."
"When someone lies or tries to be deceptive,
Now, creative editing aside (lotsa dots in there), what happens when I display a fear microexpression when I'm asked if I have any bomb?
Because that's what's going to happen, because with all this overhyped security I'm tense and slightly afraid when I'm dealing with these people anyway. Why? Because they have the power, on suspiciuon alone, to really ruin my day, my entire holiday, my business trip or perhaps even my life, depending on just how far they want to take everything.
So yes, when I get a grilling from a security agent, he's going to see fear. And the fact I now know (s)he's looking for it will make it even more likely.
Welcome the new world where paranoia becomes a self fulfilling phenomenon.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Is this really a surprise to anyone? They've been watching the faces of people passing through the green (nothing to declare) channel in Customs for decades.
Have they studied the faces of enough terrorists to gather enough data to know how a terrorists face muscles move? I really doubt it. This is like that movie Equilibrium with Christian Bale, where they train to spot "sense offenders", people with faces that don't go along with the stoic masses, who had illegal emotions. This is just more government expansion and a waste of tax dollars.
Like every good /.er I didn't RTFA. But this reminds me of something that happened to me recently.
I was walking down the street late at night with a friend of mine. All of a sudden he yells out, "Crap!" and starts getting all agitated.
"What are you doing", I asked.
"Don't look! It's the police", he replied. "I always have trouble with them. Every time I see them they follow me and then I end up getting into a hassle."
I looked at him. Then I looked at the police. Then I waved at the police and they drove off.
"How did you do that??", he asked incredulously.
It never occurred to him that his nervousness was the only thing that way attracting the police's attention. For some reason he thought they had it in for him or something.
I suspect that there will be a lot more people being detained if nervousness is a reason to detain someone. There are just people who are nervous around authority figures. And since that nervousness usually gets them into trouble, they become even more nervous. Welcome to longer lineups at the airport...
I couldn't hear you over the latest TV gossip program.
Besides. I feel safe.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I WANT the airport security looking for people acting odd. There's only so many ways someone can put themselves into a position where they can injure or kill the other passengers on a plane and having security folks check for people acting odd seems to be an obvious procedure to follow. Someone acting nervous needs to get greater scrutiny. Profile all you want 'cause I'm thinking a blue haired Grandma ain't the best candidate for security to detain and search.
/.
Then again, I don't insist on wearing tinfoil hats. I WANT bad guys doing bad things caught. I guess I'm in the minority here on
- real hackers don't have sigs -
"It's more relevant how you respond. Vague, evasive responses -- fear shows itself. When you do this long enough, you see it right away."
What if I choose not to tell you? That's within my rights as well. I will also make it as difficult as possible for you to do your job.
Anyone seeing my facial expression as I pass through a US airport will immediately see someone pissed off at the delay, disruption and unbelieveable hassle involved with TSA controlled air travel.
Ed Almos
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
where did you get that bullshit?
There is very little evidence that micro-facial expressions actually work for this purpose. Unfortunately, the US government and law enforcement seem to be rather prone to this kind of snake oil. Lie detectors are another example.
I hope their training covers the differences in expressions between terrorist activity and the expressions of disdain and contempt.
This is nothing new. Haven't you ever heard the expression, "That person looks suspicious"? People with ulterior motives often give something away with their expressions. It's not any new or even "totalitarian" for people to use the techniques of looking for those expressions as part of their process for detecting threats.
Behavioural profiling, including facial expressions, is actually one of the more effective predictors of ill intent that airport security has at it's disposal and it's been in use for years.
Bear in mind you don't get shot for looking suspicious - you just get singled out for further attention. And it's a hell of a lot more positive than profiling on race or blocking people from flying based on their name.
From TFA: "...behavior-detection officers have referred about 70,000 people for secondary screening, Maccario said. Of those, about 600 to 700 were arrested on a variety of charges, including possession of drugs, weapons violations and outstanding warrants."
So, uh, just how many ter'rists were caught?
I learned at a very young age that when I did something naughty and got real quiet that was when my Mom came looking to see what I was up to. So I started doing all naughty things while whistling or otherwise in a noisy fashion.
When I was at college a group of friends went to scout out the local thing it was customary to steal on campus. Like your scenario, a campus cop drove by and one of our group ducked low and darted for the shrubs. We were like, "Dude, why don't you just wear a sign that says you are up to no good?"
The best way to do naughty things is to look like you are supposed to be there. It's called "Social Engineering".
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
This sounds like a clear case of facial profiling. Where is the ACLU on this one!
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
Am I a terrorist... or just constipated?
Thanks for the reminder of why I no longer fly anywhere.
Train more to recognize pedo-smile.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If you can't see people's eyes, it's very difficult to interpret their expressions. Obviously sunglasses-wearing travellers have something to hide. Just to be sure, ship 'em off (modern day transportation of criminals?)
Just as a side-bar, how many of the errrr... ZERO terrorist attacks in the last couple of years would this measure have prevented?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Do you really think someone who is willing to hijack a plane and then fly it into a skyscraper doesn't already have a poker face? I'm also sure the would-be terrorists already travel regularly so they be well accustomed to the different facets of airport security.
First it's facial expressions, next it will be the thought police.
Do they have any way of validating that these techniques actually work?
How did they do the experiments? Did they have a pool of real terrorists and anxious innocent passengers and a way of doing double-blind testing?
Or was it the training just done by some expert consultants who possess an air of authority and a confident manner?
Is this any better than using graphology on the passenger's signature... or having a computer run a quick horoscope... or following the methods of the Malleus Maleficarum?
Is there any, any, any reason at all to believe in the validity of these techniques?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I was in the airport this last weekend to pick someone up. As I sat and waited, I heard the 'if you see anything or anyone suspicious, dial 911' announcement a few dozen times.
I hate airports to start with, and the added security and craziness makes me hate them more. So now, on top of that, my nervousness might be seen as terrorist attitude and I've got 1 -more- thing to worry about. Great!
I heard a rumor a while back... The rumor said that we have -never- found even a single terrorist with the security we have at the airports. Not one. Since then, I have never seen a news report that says we found a terrorist at an airport. There are reports of spoiled plots, but they never involve the airport itself... They are always stopped by law enforcement.
Has anyone got a news report they can cite to show we -have- found terrorists this way? Or are the airport security concerns just harrassing law-abiding citizens?
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
"Then again, I don't insist on wearing tinfoil hats. I WANT bad guys doing bad things caught. I guess I'm in the minority here on /."
/. you'll find that people aren't quite as willing as average to submit to full body cavity searches in the name of their own security. Or being hassled for hours in an interrogation room because you looked at someone funny. Maybe because we're more socially dysfunctional than average and are always giving people funny looks by accident...
/. have something to do with the constant flow of stories here on /. (and, to be fair, anywhere else people with half a brain gather) about bad legislation, bad policing, corrupt or transparently bought-out government.
Oh me too. We all want bad guys doing bad things to be caught. But here on
You might also find the roots of the more prevalent anti-authoritarian attitude here on
I fundamentally do not agree with the current crop of legislators on who is a "bad guy doing a bad thing", and I also fundamentally disagree with using unreliable methods to detect said individuals.
This is actually great. Now when I've been randomly selected to be searched after already running late through the hideously long security line the TSA agent will be able to read my facial expressions before asking me how I'm doing today!
For the last five years I have been doing the following when I fly: From the moment I step up to the TSA agent checking id's and boarding passes I look them in the eyes. I would say nine times out of ten they check my id against my boarding pass and initial the bp without ever looking up at me. I want them to do what I did when I ran a cash register at a liquor store, check the picture, check the face, check the picture again. I'm to scared that they'll ruin my day to ever point out to them that they never checked my face against the one on my id. About time some of them are at least being taught to look at our faces.
I'd rather have people do this kind of work. At least they can explain why they think why someone is a threat. If you leave this job to a neural network, probably the best explanation will be "because the computer says so". And we all know computers are always right...
Privacy is terrorism.
I don't see what the concern is. I'll take a wild guess and propose that trained security types already know to look for body language and behaviour that indicate nervousness. People do this all the time when dealing with others; the only time this is not observed is when typing on the internet like I'm doing now.
Out of 70,000 people that were harassed by these so-called "Airport Profilers", only about 700 of them were found to be guilty of anything at all. That's a pretty lousy false-positive rate of 99%, which means, of course, 69,300 of these people were needlessly bothered and harassed and humiliated and personally violated.
Of the 700 or so that was guilty "of something", none were found to be "terrorists".
Am I missing something here? When was the last time a "terrorist" was found by the TSA in the US? And how much money is being spent on the TSA?
How many people die in traffic accidents per year? 41,000 or so? How many people in the US die of terrorism in the US per year? Let's average over a decade to account for 911. Over the past ten years, an estimated 410,000 died on our roadways, yet only 3000 by terrorists. So nearly 137 times the number of people in the last 10 years died on the road vs. terrorism, and yet how much money is spent on traffic safety vs. Homeland (In)Security? Am I missing something here?
You wonderful hard-earned gun-extracted Tax Dollars being put to such useful and meaningful work!!!
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Stop being afraid.
There it is. Can't get much simpler than that.
That sure didn't cost 500 billion dollars (a staggering number, no matter the value of the American fiat peso these days). Nor were uncounted lives wasted on the deployment of this plan, or the occupation that followed its deployment.
Now that the war is over, and that I've won it, can we fucking stop now? Can we have our airports back? Can we travel freely amongst ourselves without being scrutinized by the sigmoid wielding high school dropouts? Can we speak freely about liberty and freedom of speech without being branded as 9/11 accomplices?
Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?
This is to catch the terrorists who DON'T look Muslim. 'Sides, if YOU were a terrorist, would YOU send Muslim-looking people on the next hijack mission? Hell, no, 'cause they're ALREADY LOOKING FOR THAT. Get some white or better yet African-descent people. Dress 'em up in the latest American trends. 'Cause they're not looking for that.
My blog
So this it the real purpose of Facebook?
I've been detained at a US airport for over an hour once. Got searched, yelled at, missed my flight, got searched again. Subsequent travels I've been very nervous. Sweating, shaky, the works. So I can't say I'm very happy with these developments.
Having married an American makes matters easier, though. At least last time I got through border checkpoint fairly easy.
Captcha : Stress. How appropriate.
so, the article says 70,000 ppl got screened due to being suspicious, of which 700 ppl had drugs or something else on them (or where criminals, ...).
That means, out of 100 ppl they pinpoint with their special training, only 1% really is guilty of something, meaning they harassed 99% of the rest.
I think they should compare their results with just checking 100 ppl at random. Because a 1% success rate in my opinion in pretty weak.
I like the feedback section:
http://www.prophetofdoom.net/Feedback.Islam
I pick the line with the female screener and just stare at her tits the whole time.
I'm pretty sure I show all those emotions in the course of a trip through security:
Fear: I'm afraid that these idiots are the ones in charge of "making air travel safe"
Anger: That so many millions of people buy into the farce that is the TSA
Surprise: That the 85 year old lady in a walker ahead of me in line seems to be the biggest prospective threat of the day
Contempt: Take your pick.
I guess I should stop traveling by air?
Did you forget Timothy James McVeigh? It was the second largest terrorist attack on US soil. He was not a Muslim.
How the hell do you think our government got so damned big and powerful it could do this crap in the first place? And now we have utter morons who want to turn our HEALTH CARE over to the same government that gives us the TSA?
How fucking stupid is that?
Really.
You've got to be utterly unable to add two and two if you think TSA is bad but yet that same government would do a great job providing you medical care.
Seriously, what's wrong with this attitude? Isn't this exactly what security personel should be doing at the airport, profiling passengers based on their overall behaviour (including facial clues)? Instead of checking my shoes, electrocuting helpless foreigners and matching the phonetic value of my name to the list compiled by bulying and torturing people being suspected of having a connection with someone suspected (but never proven) of being terrorist?
Robert
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
Gilmore lost his suit; the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court refused to intervene; see the coverage at Papers Please!.
It avoids racial profiling but creates a new form of profiling, which basically means some new class of legitimate travelers will suffer the pain of false positives. I really worry about this kind of "expression reading" because:
1. It targets members of society who have above-average social anxiety, or "deviate from the norm" in some other way. Geeks and Nerds could end up being "more suspicious" simply because they either have mild social anxiety, or because they are "aware" of the facial profiling, hence they appear nervous (because they're thinking "oh crap they're analyzing my face... try to look natural and calm... but don't look like you're trying too hard!" and thus appear to be hiding something).
2. Overall, as soon as you create rules for deciding who gets greater scrutiny, you create a weakness that the enemy can exploit. The enemy knows what they have to train to avoid/circumvent, thus enabling them to suffer detailed searches less often than average, instead of more often (which was the intention). It has been shown many times that the optimal security strategy is often the one that uses perfect randomness, since there is no defense against it (see Schneier's analysis and this paper).
So, really, coming up with new and fancy ways to profile people isn't all that helpful. (Of course, there's the dim possibility that they are publicly claiming to profile, but are secretly using a random strategy, hoping that the enemy wastes effort in trying to circumvent a non-existent analysis system, thereby making them easier to catch... but somehow I doubt it.)
yes... But... Is it safe? Is it safe...? is it safe...?
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Perfect. Just perfect.
Because there's nothing that sets me off, casting anxious glances around me, dropping things, stumbling over my words, and generally acting strange more than the knowledge that I'm being surveilled by hastily-trained government officials looking for suspicious behavior.
I used to get jumpy just driving through those booths on the way up to Canada. Do I have any what in the car? No, I don't smoke! Shit, *that* sounded fake. I'll give him a nervous laugh to reassure him that I'm telling the truth. Huh-ha!
Wait, did he just call me an asshole?! Ah, no -- "that's all" with an accent. Okay, restart the stalled car (he's going to think it's stolen, isn't he?) and move on.
I don't know the details of how that works psychologically, but damn... it messes with your head.
All that small talk I get nowadays from the petty officials in US airports, while they try to suss out if I'm HERE TO KILL PEOPLE or just home visiting family in the US? I loathe it. Cold sweats. I know what they're trying to figure out, and it makes me think about killing people. Wait, did I just make the kind of joke a terrorist might make?
This is partly why I moved out of the US. These are not good things, they are not helping anything, and they are just fucking with our heads. Some of them are aware of this.
I still have family there, though, so I can't get around it completely. But if you see my photo on the news... yeah, I didn't do it. I just managed to act suspicious enough.
Many airport security operations overseas have used similar techniques for quite some time; and this provides a way to be more rigorous in how to select people to screen furtehr. As TFA pointed out, law enforcement (and doctors / shrinks / etc.) have used this type of observation for years - because certain behavior patterns often indicate something is wrong or needs further exploration. I'd rather have them do this than get randomly selected very time I buy a one-way ticket at the last minute; becasue it attempts to provide consistant logical methodology to the process. I doubt it is perfect but no xcreening system is. One problem with guaging success is you don'y know who decided not to try to commit a crime becasue they realized they *may* be caught and decided not to risk it.
/. will make, my experience is many people in law enforcemenmt truly care about such things as civil liberties and Constitutional rights; their goal is to protect people without infringing on their righst and keep the bad actors off the stage.
One key is properly training people so they can be effective and it doesn't become yet another "good idea" that morphs into a useless and potentially illegal profiling methodology.
Finally, despite the Orwellean tie-in some on
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Do their techinques take into account people with high functioning autism, or other non-neurotypical conditions that affect body language?
I accidentally beat a polygraph test years ago because I was so uniformly anxious that when I DID lie, the interpreter didn't see it as any different than my other responses.
Parts of the autistic condition are severe ADHD and the inability to read or express thru facial or body expressions. The hyperactivity alone (fidgetyness) can be interpreted as sneakiness or a deceptivity-give-away. Other body language miscues produced will result what appears to be "vague, evasive responses - fear shows itself. When you do this long enough, you see it right away."
Areas crowded with people cause me anxiety by itself, especially if more than one person is trying to talk to me - such as companions, plus airline checkin personnel, and now the body-language gestapo....oops, didn't mean Godwin this, sorry.
I haven't been in an airport since 9/11 and I sure as hell ain't gonna go now.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
So, no positive replies to this at all? When it's trying to do the same thing that has been most successful in other countries? It's a much better idea than relying on random searches and X-ray machines. The machines are easy to confuse and to avoid a random search all you have to do is look white and Christian. At least this way there is some hope that you can detect anyone that is a possible threat. That said, I'm sure the underpaid screeners will do a crappy job. If you're working airport security in the US, you're probably not very bright. And I'm not one of the people who is terribly afraid of a terrorist attack (especially on an airplane) either. But if they're going to pull some percentage of travelers out of line for secondary screening, it would be nice if they had a reason other than skin color or religious dress. I've certainly never seen someone in full Muslim attire make it through security without being pulled aside.
Well, indeed. It's not clear what "positive" and "negative" mean in this context. How would you measure success? The problem is that there are so many presuppositions here that it's hard to know what the agenda is, or what the metric of success is.
We are to take this as fact. But what if the trained terrorist does not in fact show fear because they are comfortable with their training? We are led to believe not only that this technique is professional but that the techniques of the passengers are amateurish.
Also, suppose it comes down to taking some sort of action. Suppose these techniques reveal something but the searches reveal nothing. Will it stop here? If someone is arrested, on what authority will it be? Something like The Minority Report? The problem is that this can't just be a technique in isolation. It will have to become a matter of law if it is to be usefully prosecuted. What will be the nature of the crime? The evidence that can be examined and challenged? Who is the accuser? What law is broken?
Another commenter (timon) made an excellent reference to 1984. In that regard, I wonder not only the question of what the crime will be but what the punishment. When it becomes impossible to show useful evidence of a suspicion, the only tool of prosecution perhaps becomes making someone an unpassenger. I would hope we would have some minimal requirements that such "special screening" unto which people were ushered were open to public view, but why do I assume that the next suggestion will be that it's too dangerous to allow that, and that a nice place, comfortably out of sight and mind of the rest of us is next... Or perhaps an alternate flight--say, to Guantanamo.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Racial? No, no, nowadays it's called facial profiling. A totally different thing! We do not profile about the color of the face, never, no, no, we don't do that...
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
there you go again spoiling everything with your facts. Stick to the program please... ;)
MP3 Search Engine
In the worst case scenario for both examples, one is far worse.
Let's say a busload of nuns, a busload of blind pre-schoolers, a busload of puppies and a busload of apple pies all manage, through some freak accident, to collide with a propane truck -- doing the math, that's a lot of dead nuns, kids, puppies and delicious apple pie, plus a blue collar propane truck driver.
On the other hand, half a dozen guys with nuke components and you end up with all that and maybe a million more?
And yes, I think nuclear terrorism is overstated, and yes the "mushroom cloud" imagery is just a political hot button.
But we're talking worst case scenarios here. And besides, wasn't it, "Could they fly planes into.....naaaaaaah" that got us into this mess to begin with?
Considering the unwashed masses that work in Miami Airport for instance... my only facial expression is likely to be a mixture of wonder and disgust :)
I'm surprised these guys can dress themselves, much less recognize terrorists by the way they behave after being 3 hours in line for immigration, after a 10+ hour flight to begin with. Honestly I'd suspect anyone smiling at all.
I have spoken'eth.
First and foremost, they are screening for suicide bombers and hijackers.. I think it goes without saying that it's difficult to become a seasoned, experienced suicide bomber. Likewise, with a few notable exceptions, hijackers have a pretty long track record of getting busted on their first go-round.
While I'm sure the TSA would be perfectly happy to catch slippery international career criminals, it's the disposable cannon fodder which most concerns them. Just a guess, but I suspect that the TSA officers receive considerably more training in detecting the behavior of these types, than the criminals themselves receive in suppressing the same.
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
Even worse are the numbers they gave for Sea-Tac specifically. Only 1.8% of the people they referred for a second screening [11 out of 600] were arrested for something, and not necessarily terrorism. For the overall number they mention arrests for drugs and outstanding warrants. I'd bet good money that the low percentage at Sea-Tac is easily matched, if not exceeded, by random screening.
Nothing to see here
"You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling towards you. You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping."
If they learn how to read "I want to kill you all", I'm never going to be able to go on an aeroplane again.
I can see Botox becoming just another minor item in the terrorist toolkit, and thus an indication of "potential terrorist activity".
I wonder how celebrities are going to handle the extra scrutiny?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Airport screening is not suppose to catch petty criminals. It's not suppose to be a dragnet for outstanding warrants. It's suppose to be about "safety", which just means that no one getting on a plane can cause the other passengers harm, or take over the plane and cause harm to those on a ground. The latter can be accomplished simply by having hardened cockpit doors, while the former is taken care of via metal detectors and chemical sniffers. This nonsense of racial or behavioral profiling is just an excuse to expand police powers to catch otherwise harmless criminals at a chokepoint.
Few protest this because they think they're safer due to the security theater. However, the numbers speak for themselves: 100% failure rate at catching terrorists, and 99% false positives for criminals of any type. Those numbers are horrific.
...I just need to take a massive crap. Will I be probed due to the redness of my face?
Cmon people. Officer Quanisha never even looks up when she grabs your boarding pass and most of the people on the Xray line are too busy admiring their shaved heads and shuttling those plastic grey buckets around to pay attention. When I fly I automatically go into stone face killer mode. Completely blank stare, non acknowledgment of chit chat questions at all. And since my company defines cheap-ass, I ALWAYS wind up with 4 one way tickets which, like everything else on the planet is another red flag anyway.
All I can say is that for a he-man image they like to project, all the TSA assholes in Texas LOVE to reach into my pants and cup my balls. So fuck you faggots and I hope you fucking die of bone cancer, every last motherfucking one of you. That's pretty much what MY facial expression conveys, assholes.
The most we have to worry about is a very *stupid* totalitarian regime. It's more "Brazil" than "1984" (i.e. they kick down the door and shoot up the place, but the door they kick down is the one NEXT TO the resistance fighter's apartment).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Lots of slashdotters are decrying this as a bad thing.
You're all wrong.
This is the *right* way to do airport security. Finally!
Take a look at the country that has the biggest terrorist problem anywhere -- Israel -- and take a look at their airport security record. The reason it's so good is simple; Israel doesn't focus on keeping bad *things* off of planes, they focus on keeping bad *people* off of planes.
It doesn't matter how many penknives and bottles of water you confiscate, a determined terrorist can easily get something usable as a weapon on the airplane. It wouldn't be that difficult to get guns on the plane, actually. To prevent terrorist attacks in the skies, you need to keep the terrorists off the planes, not their shoes.
Israeli airport screeners do search your stuff. Very thoroughly, in fact. But the one looking through your stuff is really just trying to make you nervous. The other one is watching your face, posture and movements, looking for responses that are wrong. He's also firing questions at you almost faster than you can answer them, sometimes asking the question multiple ways to look for evasions. Finally, he's noting key points of your answers which he's going to threaten to check -- and may actually check if the rest of it gives him any concern. "Where did you go?", "Who did you meet with?", "Do you have his business card?", etc. The answers to the questions are important, but even more important is their effect, which is to rattle you.
I'm not trying to say that US airports should adopt the same approach. For one thing, it's too slow and way too costly to have two highly-trained officers interrogate each and every traveler for 5+ minutes. But the basic concept can be applied here: apply enough scrutiny and pressure to make people nervous, then watch their reactions. Focus more attention on those whose reactions are wrong. Who defines what "wrong" means? Experience.
Oh, and then let people take a coke or a penknife on the airplane.
Personally, I think we ought to back off on the whole thing. We don't have the same sort of problem with terrorism that Israel does, and aren't going to, as long as we get someone more rational to replace Bush. Sure we had 9/11 -- a fleabite in the grand scheme of things, killing less people than die on the highways each month and doing less property damage than a good-sized hurricane. Simple refusal to be terrorized, acceptance that bad things sometimes happen, is the best approach IMO. That and, in the case of aircraft, aggressive passenger response to any attempted hijacking -- oh, and keeping passengers out of the cockpit is a cheap, easy and effective change.
If we're going to try to stop terrorism at the TSA security checkpoint, though, *this* is the right way to do it. Requiring passengers to carry their toothpaste and aftershave in a one-quart baggie is pointless security theatre.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
My terrorist intent is usually high when I have to take my clothes and shoes off and turn my laptop on at the same time. It usually wears off when I have all my things in place again.
... is getting the precogs to figure this out *before* you actually get to the airport!
May I use your sig please?
This is the only post so far presenting an alternative viewpoint, and it gets a 3?
Behavioral profiling may have a high false positive rate, but confiscating liquids and nail clippers is even worse. If you're going to be inconvenienced, would you rather have someone ask you a few extra questions or steal random pieces of your luggage?
More importantly, behavioral profiling is much more difficult to adapt to than banned items. Ask Bruce Schneier about this one.
I really like this idea, it's much better than the useless shoe and liquid rules they made to improve the perception of safety. Profiling at airports is very effective when done correctly, and I just hope they trained their employees well for this. Every passenger should be profiled before getting on a flight. Other countries have done this to great effect, and it does not impede the passenger in any way. I don't understand why some people here are seeing this negatively, is it really upsetting to have a security agent say hi to you at the airport? Thank you TSA!
Ummm...I can't think of anything to add to the subject line, except some comparisons: if 99% of the people getting speeding tickets were innocent, would that be "excellent"? If you were charged incorrectly 99% of the time you bought groceries or fastfood, would that be "so good"?
Yes, these are relevant comparisons: in each case, you can correct the situation by greater interaction (court appearance, challenging the receipts, stripping to yer undies) with the mistaken organizations.
And in each case, the wrongness is unacceptable.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Because if you don't, that unhappy facial expression caused by the insane security checks, being late for your connection due to weather, or any of the other hassles that accompany airline travel nowadays might just get you detained for further questioning with a body cavity search included at no extra charge.
We'll solve the problem of terrorists using our airlines once we make air travel so much of a hassle that only terrorists will rely on it. Everyone else will have gotten fed up with the experience and just drive to their destination. I have to wonder if that's the government's goal. It's easier to keep us under surveillance if we're not moving around the country so much, you know.
I say this is a GOOD thing. In my opinion we should've started doing this from the very beginning. I'd much rather talk to a TSA agent trained in recognizing microfacial expressions, than go through the useless and annoying process of removing my shoes and throwing away my bottle of water. Unfortunately they're not likely to do away with the silly stuff, at least just yet. I still think this is progress towards effective security. The issue with TSA oversight is an entirely different matter.
Bruce Schneier has written about this before:
http://www.schneier.com/essay-076.html
Get botoxed before travelling.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
If some of them could just plain read.
Oh, that guy over there looks slighly annoyed. OMG! Terrorist! *ratatatatata*
Now now, everyone knows that Israel is the Zionist Oppressor of the World, and innocent, noble (though temporarily stolen and controlled by Israel) America can't copy a damned thing that bitch has done.
But seriously, do you trust random, stupid TSA screeners enough to let them do what IDF soldiers do? I'll take the IDF any day.
... by all the screening etc at the airport.
... $35 from Washington to Newark, pay on the plane, flights leave ever hour. First come first serve. All the seats different color schemes (like they were salvaged from other companies donor aircraft). It was cheap, it was slightly dirty, it was fast, it was convenient. That was 1989ish
No real, live bomb has ever been stopped from going on a plane.
No real terrorist has ever been caught as they were going on a plane he (she?) intended to hijack.
To some extent, the TSA's additional screening might have scared off a terrorist, but they would have no way of knowing if their facial expression reading was correct or not - until after the fact, when they realize they missed someone.
Assuming of course the terrorist are planning to do the exact same crime again. As was demonstrated in Spain, there are plenty of soft targets about.
So based on some facial expression, certain people will get additional screening - even more hassle to fly a plane. Flying has already become 100% un-fun since 9/11, between the price wars (how little service can we get away with) and the extra security (how long can we make it take to get on a plane), I rather drive or take the train. Home to customer site, Amtrak Accela gets me there in 4hrs. The flight would be about 1hr, but the additional hassle would easily eat the 3hrs saved.
Bring back People's Express!
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
with these guys in charge...we're boned.
About 5% of individuals are natural 'perfect liars'. They display no discernible stress indicators when interrogated. Learn how to recruit these people to your organisation (it's not that hard, the world has a lot of trained interrogators) and any advantage is lost.
... one more block in the wall
If you want to be left alone by the TSA just make sure you have one of the two normal facial expressions flyers have nowadays, gritted teeth and exhaustion or being on the verge of tears.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
So why stop at the airport? Let's train police officers to look for people who act odd. Let's go back to the old custom of cops on the beat, who walk around in public places. Then they can ask "How are you" of everyone they meet, and, if anyone responds with a "microflash" of anger or contempt or even annoyance, let's book him just in case he is a dangerous criminal. At the very least, a full background check, a patdown, and a gentle interrogation are surely in order.
So why stop there? Let's have police officers actively patrolling the neighborhood in the evening. If they don't like the look of a house, why not stop by, ring the bell and ask the residents how they are doing? If they exhibit signs of nervousness, annoyance, or some other negative emotion, why, that's a prime cause to search the house! Let's see what they are hiding in here! Oh, my goodness, is that heroin? Are you still beating your wife? Does that child look malnourished? Is that Mao's portrait on the wall?
Nice try, asshole. The Oklahoma bombing was obviously an inside job. Try searching Youtube for the TV coverage from the day of the bombing... There is no way a truck bomb can destroy concrete pillars like that.
So meanwhile, WHY are non-muslims having OUR lives ruined by these sand niggers again?
And I see none of you assholes could address the hideous truth: the 'prophet' Mohammed was a mass murderer, multiple rapist, and a paedophile...
As documented by muslims, for 1400 years.
www.prophetofdoom.net
Yes, you are mistaken.
The Million Man March was held on the Mall in DC in 1995, with somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people.
This garnered a lot of attention and the "Million * March" naming scheme was borrowed by a number of later groups, such as the:
- Million Mom March, May 2000, about 150,000 - 200,000 women advocating for gun control laws
- Million Worker March, 2004, about 10,000 people protesting globalization and free-trade treaties
- Million Family March, 2000, tens-of-thousands of people
Furthermore, there have been an enormous amount of anti-war protests against the war in Iraq, starting in 2002 and continuing to today
There was also a lot of coverage for the 1999 Anti-WTO protests in Seattle, WA that brought out an estimated 50,000-100,000 people.
And, of course, there were so many protesters when Bush was inaugurated into Office in 2000 that he was the first President in over a hundred years that couldn't walk from the capitol to the White House after being sworn-in. He had to be taken there in an armored car.
And you'd be surprised about the proximity to the White House. Nearly all marches/protests are held on the Mall in DC, which is a huge expanse that runs between the US Capitol on one end and the Washington Monument on the other end, with the White House right in between. It's set back a couple hundred yards from the mall, but the protests where abutted right against the White House gate.
You know.. I'm so sick of arrogant Europeans talking trash about how ignorant Americans are, when so many show that same ignorance about Americans themselves. I mean, no offense, in a country like America, with 300,000,000 people and, as the only remaining "Super Power", LOTS of things to protest, to assume that we've had no "major" protests in 30 years just shows an alarming bias/ignorance of our culture.
Muslims drive airplanes into buildings with no hope of escape = organized religious nut jobs with plenty more folks willing to martyr themselves.
Oh yeah - those are exactly the same kind of terrorist threats.
I think someone needs to explode a "clue bomb" next to you.
It's interesting how much people exaggerate what's going on. Security agents can either check people at random, check people who look suspicious, or (ideally, IMO) do a combination of the two.
If they're going to check people who they think look suspicious, then they might as well at least get some formal training on what cues they should be looking for, and how to differentiate between those cues and more innocent anxiety. That stuff will never be foolproof, but I fail to see how it's worse than not having any training on the matter at all.
Correction: 1%. 700 out of 70,000.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If you need to make it through customs and you've got a record, make a fake ID (a convincing one!) with a birthdate of 29 February. Many government systems reject this date since nobody bothered to account for leap years. Because of this the Customs and Border Protection agent has no way to look up your record.
Neil Rackham, best-known for formalising the 'SPIN' sales technique, used many sources to identify high performers in person to person situations. One example I remember from his highly-readable book, is where he observed customs officers.
Those who were better at spotting offenders commonly said it was 'instinct'. When observing those people at work, Rackham noticed that they in fact picked up verbal and non-verbal clues, (avoiding eye contact...), that could then be codified and tranferred to others via training.
El Al security and that at Israeli airports is very good. Their methodology is to get two people to talk to you and then confer as well as a 100$ baggage search. I've even had them compare my dive log with that of my buddy to compare notes (we admitted to a night dive near Eilat). However, it is also extremely expensive. The people doing the screening are not the TSA or whoever and go about their job very professionally (I understand that some of them are Israeli military/intelligence). This is only possible for Israel and isn't for the US or elsewhere unless someone decided to increase the ticket cost massively.
See my journal, I write things there
This is smart, and we should have been doing this all along. It's like the loss control officers at any major retail store. They identify shoplifters by their behavior patterns. Shoplifters will be looking around a lot and will keep an eye on store staff. Terrorists and those attempting to evade security at an airport will also exhibit a certain behavior. You aren't going to catch everyone that has ill-intent, but you can bet that if we have another terrorist attack involving air travel, we would all be up in arms about how the government failed to use a tool that could have saved so many lives (not to mention the myriad conspiracy theorists that would claim we let it happen). Provided that what they are doing is legal, and it seems to be (they are just picking people out with suspicious behavior for further screening), it would be ignorant and irresponsible to not utilize this tool.
Except that:
1) We're not replacing the security theatre with SPOT/facecrime officers.
2) You really think these goons are gonna be any better-trained than the fuckwits at the TSA counter?
Watch the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie "Firefox". The first hour and a half centers about how to smuggle an American pilot (Clint) into Soviet Russia past all the KGB goons at the airports and subway stations. The second hour deals with him stealing their coolest fighter plane, and offers lots of great flight footage and stuff blowing up. There's no preachy politics, it's just a fun action flick based on a 1980 technothriller novel.
It's cool that in the 25 years since the movie was made, we're now developing thought-guided weapons systems (and probably Mach-5 capable stealth aircraft :). The part that most vividly comes to mind is a KGB goon running SPOT techniques on Clint. Without spoiling the scene -- if you've ever been SPOTted at an airport, you'll be surprised by Clint's reaction, because you'll recognize the KGB guy's technique because you've had it done to you, and Clint's character, even with CIA training, misses it.
Some people are extremely afraid of misidentification. Can the screeners distinguish between terrorists who are afraid of being caught and lawful citizens who are afraid of being killed on the spot by overzealous counterterrorism agents who misread a facial expression or two?
To my shame and discredit, I was a TSA Security Officer for about four years (Somebody had to pay the bills while my wife went through med school). If this new program follows any of their other training procedures, it's essentially worthless. They introduced a position for a specially trained "Bomb Appraisal Officer" whom you call in when you see a potential explosive device on the x-ray screen or in a bag search, and this officer's job is to decide whether to call the Bomb Squad. The intense training regimen for this position was two thirty-minute CD-ROMs sent from headquarters. How that is supposed to turn an average screener into an explosives expert, I couldn't say. Aside from a handful of improvements, mostly in terms of physical security (locks, fences around airfields, reinforced cockpit doors) TSA is just window dressing--an elaborate and expensive sleight-of-hand to make the public think that their government is "doing something" about terrorism. But I was obscenely overpaid to do a very simple job for a few years, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
Did you know... You are not allowed to protest on the public roads outside of Bush's ranch anymore...
SMILE! THE COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND!
You WILL do all this with a happy smile on your face, content in the knowledge that I, your Friend, have only the best in mind for you.
Oh, there have been protests. A lot of them over nonsense such as "pro-life", etc. There have been significant ones such as the anti-war marches, the immigrants ones last year, and the 1M man march. The comments about gun owners merely polishing their guns and not doing anything, however, still hold. The gun-owners, if they can be said to be represented by the vehemently-pro-gun right wing radio, universally mocked these protests and protesters. Also, unlike in France, the so-called news here minimized or outright ignored these protests.
That's why I'm training a terrorist cell that dresses as 19th century English gentry, resplendent in houndstooth caps and handlebar moustaches atop penny farthing bicycles.
They'll never suspect a thing until it's too late. BWAHAHAHA!
Blank until
That is not at all true. These methods are simply a best attempt at preserving freedom
and democracy in the face of serious threat and hostility.
Our ordinary social policies are so nonrestrictive that terrorists could easily exploit
them for terrible gain. Within such a carefree environment security is always a tremendous
challenge. Completely overturning our freedoms would be unthinkable and thus these gentle
scrutinies and intrusions become the necesary compromise.
However, when the threat against us eventually vanishes, will we have the gumption
to dismantle these new methods? Or will we simply retain them for the nebulous reasons
of general safety and well being? This is perhaps the essential question.
The only terrorist organization affecting my life is my own government. Land of the free, indeed! It almost makes one wish that there actually were a bunch of pissed of Arabs assassinating politicians.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
> meaning the same percentage of people would be charged with something if they just picked people at random?
Oh, yes! That's the wonderful thing about rethorics though: doesn't it sound awesome when they say "we arrested 600 evildoers using this spiffy technique"? When in reality that amounts to less than 1% of all those referred to secondary screening; which of course means they could have just picked out people at random and got the same results.
The scary thing is actually that this whole process doesn't seem to involve people with actual functioning brains, so the stunning ineffectiveness (and abusiveness) of this neat surveilance technique is obviously never subjected to any form of quality control at all, ever.
> Only 1.8% of the people they referred for a second screening [11 out of 600] were arrested for something, and not necessarily terrorism.
Ha! If they got even one single terrorism-related arrest out of this, they would have advertised the shit out of that single success! It never happened.
I think it's interesting how we have formalized, absorbed and completely accepted many of the mannerisms that are so popular in dictatorial regimes.
... does a beard and dark skin count as a "facial expression" now?
8==8 Bones 8==8
Sounds like he'd fit well in the leadership of the catholic church up until pretty recently, then. In quite a few other churches too.
Ah, yes. The same people who strip-searched a Marine Corps honor guard and attempeted to confiscate Joe Foss' Medal of Honor. I am so glad not to be business travelling anymore.
I've been profiling TSA employees since this past summer...Mind findings confirm that 97% of TSA employees are previously terminated McDonalds employees.
Rent-a-cops can have you sodomised with a latex-covered finger for looking at them the wrong way.
God bless america!
land of the free?
Apparently you DO become your enemies. Or, at least, the Stasi used the same techniques, and they presumably got it from the Gestapo.
when going to the US for the holidays was a fun experience, Disney, Epcot, Orlando, Miami Beach, and every florida vacation spot, or going to California to try to catch a glimpse of the glamour of Hollywood. Having your kids see for themselves where dreams where made.
:) Happy New year from a Cobarde Anonimo, somewhere in latin america :)
or maybe catch a memento of that dream and bring it home with you and show it off to family or friends.
Thanks to a fuck up by your immigration police, i was paraded around the Dallas terminal in handcuffs after my kids watched me getting man handled and arrested, spent a night in a county jail and then kicked out, family was freaking scared until i got home and contacted everyone to let them know i was ok, and not in Guantanamo.
But no hard feelings, infact, if you guys ever get over your paranoia, come to latin america, we'll give you a cup of coffee, a couple minutes of friendly chat, maybe a tour of a city or archaeological dig. Hey, maybe you'll catch an intestinal illness, but trust me, it is without bad intent.
One good thing that came out of the experience was knowing there's a whole world outside your borders. Maybe someday you guys might be lucky enough to experience it as well.
I really wish the best for you my gringo friends
If I only had mod points you'd get 'em.
This is the central scientific question: there is no evidence that facecrime screeners do better than randomness.
Facecrime screeners are getting a 1% hit rate in a society that currently already has nearly 1% of its population behind bars.
"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him." --Cardinal Richelieu
The organs of the state look a lot deeper than six written lines when trying to pin something on people who have committed facecrime. And they still only find 1% of them sufficiently guilty of anything to charge them. Sounds like randomness to me, and any rational person will tend to believe that until it is proven otherwise.
From TFA: Ordinary people who are feeling anxious are "much more open with their body movements and their facial expressions as compared to an operational terrorist (thinking) 'I've got to defeat security,' " Maccario said. "We're looking for behavior indicators that show a certain level of stress, fear or anxiety above and beyond that shown by an anxious member of the traveling public."
The level of ignorance and sheer incompetence in this one single paragraph alone is so stunningly below what you can reasonably expect from an individual with an IQ of at least 80, it is downright scary people like that have so much control over everybody's life.
Your average driver doesn't get into the car with the intent of crashing it.
I think that's what you're missing.
Do you Americans realize that you are heading towards a totalitarian regime?
No, because this is a terrible example of that. Would you rather instead of police being able to look for suspicious behaviour, they looked for towels around your head or the color of your skin?
Totalitarian regime indeed!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How do they differentiate terrorists from people like me who are naturally nervous when flying? there is a large subset of the population that have a fear of flying and will look nervous and fearful when in an airport.
Just more proof that I'm terrible at math. I took a placement test last year, at age 32, for the local college. I basically aced the writing/grammar portions of the test. Then they told me I had to take remedial algebra classes.
The *really* sad part? I actually checked my number on a calculator! Ouch...
Nothing to see here
Traveler that's pissed off because he had to wait 2 hours in security and was randomly chosen for an anal probe: :-(
:-
Nothing to it!
Traveler that's pissed off at America:
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Since January 2006, behavior-detection officers have referred about 70,000 people for secondary screening, Maccario said. Of those, about 600 to 700 were arrested on a variety of charges, including possession of drugs, weapons violations and outstanding warrants."
... er ... skillfully picked out of the crowds by highly-trained Federal officers happen to be arrestable for some reason or other?
Go fishing much?
If we have about 1 out of every 136 of our citizens actually imprisoned at any given time, how surprised should we be that 1% of the people randomly chosen
Hah! I bet they get a lot of that. I don't know many people who travel that don't hold TSA in contempt.
I absolutely agree that the various latest security schemes (limiting fluids, etc) are nuts.
It makes sense to me that you want to decide if the passenger is dangerous, not his stuff. I don't care if he's a terrorist, an escaped felon, or a mental patient who's going to decide to defecate on the beverage cart. Let's keep him off the plane.
But where I disagree with you - and others - is in the comparison of terrorist deaths to traffic deaths, or cancer deaths, or any other flavor. After the World Trade Center was knocked down, the economy (especially in certain sectors) TANKED. The entire tech consulting company I was working for was laid off. All of us. It took me six months to find another job. That's a pretty common story if you ask around (and I'm sure others here will agree with me.)
We can say "don't let the terrorists get us down" but it did have a major economic impact in 4Q 2001/1Q 2002 and it will again if something of that magnitude happens again.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
We all know which is more effective.
And yet another uncomfortable truth gets modded "Troll"
What's that?
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Would the cameras be set more on evil frown, or super grin? I guess there will be allot of "" ">" used in the programming. Set in your somber faces everyone. Don't be mad, or think of a funny joke. You might be on Secure Cam!!
I really can't hide my contempt for TSA workers and the DHS in general. I especially scowl every time I hear 'threat condition orange' over the PA. What a bunch of crap.
This is amazing.
...etc.
...
Does anyone know how culture factors in here?
Things that are expected to be "nice" in US culture is rude in others. Examples are looking someone in the eye. In the US, it is expected, while it is insolent in many other cultures. Not looking someone in the eye can mean disrespect, evasion, sneakiness,
This is going to be fun to watch, unless you are the suspect that is
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Because this is Slashdot - where hype and hysteria that conforms to the hivemind's political beliefs are valued far above facts and far, far, above the free and independent thinking that the hivemind supposedly values.
As you yourself turn around and prove by giving in to stereotypes and assumptions.
Look in the mirror for the answers to your questions.
"variety of charges" means that other might have been arrested for simply not cooperating with TSA which would not happen if they were not selected based on their grimace. Also "arrested" does not mean that they were all guilty.
He just laughed and waved me through.
Had this been in the USA, that remark would have gotten me a full body cavity search.
Have gnu, will travel.
"singled out for further attention"? what does this mean, exactly? Detained, strip-searched, interrogated. Per the earlier comments on the stupidly high false-positive rate (99%), this seems like an ineffective, poorly thought-out measure which will not make anyone safer. All it does is give airport security (usually low-income, poorly educated, poorly trained) the ability to detain and otherwise make life miserable for anyone they decide "looks funny". There is no objective standard for identifying facial expressions, and there is no objective way to measure accuracy. This measure is seriously irresponsible.
I just did some flying for the holidays and considering I accidentally flew through 3 airports with not one but 2 pocket knives in my carry on, I have very little confidence in the TSA to be able to do anything. I noticed them when I was repacking to come home.
You can listen to an audio interview with the psychology professor who helped develop this program: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/08/31/midmorning2/ (Real audio format)
I didn't realise that any leaders of the Catholic church were mass murderers...
So your brilliant response is that two wrongs make a right?
How many Catholics WORSHIP the leaders of the Catholic church who are paedophiles? Not many. Do they read a book every day, which tells them how the Catholic leader raped young boys, and then threaten anybody who calls them on this, with death, and then CARRY IT OUT?
Is this really the best rebuttal you've got?
You can't face the reality of the pure evil that is Islam, so you have to hide it from yourself. That's YOUR problem - if you want to die at the hands of insane muslims, that's up to YOU, but stop imposing your insanity on the rest of us. The rest of us DON'T WANT muslims in OUR countries. Because of their BEHAVIOUR.
Asshole...
Well, what you realize and what you don't really is your problem, but I suggest you check out the keywords 'witchhunts', 'inquisition' and 'crusades'.
Between the warrior popes and mohammed it's going to be a closer race.
MP3 Search Engine
I will use just look straight at them and say "These aren't the droids you're looking for."
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
this isn't anythign that normal people don't do on a day to day basis to each other. "Is he avoiding eye contact because he doesn't like me, or because he is bored"
Just talk to any woman.
oh wait.... that's right, I'm on slashdot.
You make a great point; one that not many understand. At least 100,000 people die per year due to side effects from FDA approved Rx medications, and yet people are shivering in their beds over terrorists. It's absurd.
It's just like trying to read someones poker face.
Checkpoints an searches for the past 100 years has been about smoking out the enemy's.
It counts on them loosing there nerve. Panicking, or exhibiting other unusual behavior that will give them away.
The actual searches have a very low success rate.
This is no different then a police traffic stop, the dude with drugs in his car will almost always run, or act deceptive and that will tip off the officer.
So now the "Terrorists" have trained and rehearsed and are much better at not tipping their hand, so on our side it we are now looking at micro expressions and other much subtler signs of deception.
But again this is nothing that an experienced police officer or Judge has already developed a natural and an almost 6th sense for.
You just can't bullshit an old judge. 5 days a week 8 hours a day for years that is all they do. Just read people, then see the paperwork to see who was lying. After some point, then just know at a glance but still must go through the exercise of proving it.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
A "terrorist" could learn how to avoid the whole facecrime thing just by reading this forum. To think that a baggage screener is going to somehow tell the difference between someone who is just nervous about flying, nervous about missing their flight, pissed about having to wait in line or nervous because they plan to blow up a plane is ridiculous. Most people who are not terrorists but might have something to hide don't necessarily make up a good story in advance, but you can be damn sure that terrorist made up a good one that he can stick too. Luckily, that terrorist doesn't actually exist. The greatest danger you face when flying is eating the food.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
I can't be sure. But I think some training is better than detaining people just because they wear a head scarf or pray to mecca or are pissed at routine flight delays....
I meant paranoia on the part of the individual passenger that he is being hunted/watched/tageted, drawing attention to himself as a result and fulfilling his paranoid delusion.
Traveller: "They're all after me!"
Agent: "That guy looks a bit shaky! Get him!"
Traveller: "I was right! they are after me!"
I see where you're coming from, but I didn't mean it that way.
I'm always pissed off and angry as hell whenever I find myself held hostage in an airport by stupid security screening procedures that are supposed to keep America safe from terrorism. My demeanor is hostile because I am anticipating having to explain things to my handicapped twelve-year-old daughter who is subject to a secondary screening each and every time because of her wheelchair and medical equipment. We don't even fly anymore unless there are no other travel options available. So you're damned right I've got a bad attitude. Even when I fly alone, the anxiety level is very high. As a religious female Jew, I'm anticipating having to deal with an illiterate, uneducated airport screener who wants me to take off the scarf or who will become irate and unpleasant when I insist on the presence of a female security screener if they're going to look up my arse for hidden bombs. The male screeners don't seem to understand or respect the concept of personal space, either for personal or religious reasons.
Yay, now we can have face crime, too! Now all we need is a backchannel for the televisors and the Miniluv can have its first vict^H^H^H^H visitor to Room 101 (will Guantanamo be renamed then?)
/(bb|[^b]{2})/ , that is the question;
. . . is wearing a burqa or niqab?
Seriously - how is that handled? Are they taken to a private room with a female TSA employee and made to remove it?
I hope so. . . Because I'm not getting on a plane with anyone who doesn't have to submit to the same level of scrutiny as the rest of us, regardless of their religious beliefs.
What?
It's just another job so that TSOs can get away from checkpoint and baggage duties. It also provides another path for promotion.
227-3517
Anyone ever heard of white coat hypertension? This sounds like Blue Coat Hypertension. I hereby claim the patent to this new phrase. btw, you owe me 3 cents for thinking it. Make checks payable to....
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
"microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt"
Hmm, I am quasi-"middle-eastern" looking (half Indian), have contempt (and possibly surprise and anger) for government agents bothering me with nosy questions, and fear of being secretly whisked away and imprisoned in a legal limbo. So I guess that makes me an immediate suspect. If they asked me where I was going, I would probably say "home". Vague and elusive? Hells yeah.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
But in a polite way, of course.
Too bad I always make this face while at the airport . . . rar
this new training is simply an extension of what's provided by the DEA's Pipeline, Convoy and Jetway programs, which IIRC started in the early 90s
According to the article: "Since January 2006, behavior-detection officers have referred about 70,000 people for secondary screening, Maccario said. Of those, about 600 to 700 were arrested on a variety of charges, including possession of drugs, weapons violations and outstanding warrants." Sounds like roughly a 99% of referrals are false positives. Is the training actually worth the time, expense, and inconvenience to innocent travelers? I wonder if an observer, untrained in the subtle skill of detecting micro-facial expressions, would do much worse just by looking for people who obviously, and more generally look suspicious.
My only concern with this is who is doing the behavioural profiling. A highly experienced security person that has undergone a comprehensive training program for behavioural profiling will be very effective. A typical US airport $10/hour "rent-a-cop" that sat through a boring badly designed half hour seminar with 200 others will be worse than useless. A big problem is that it is quite hard to do correctly and is apparently not being done so in this case. In the article, they say there are 600-700 arrests out of 70,000 identifications of a threat. That means they are wrong 99% of the time and finding someone getting on a plane with an outstanding warrant (when many of them from what I have read can be for very minor infractions like unpaid parking tickets) hardly eliminates a threat to security. They might be able to pick people at random and do better, depending on how many people have warrants for unpaid parking tickets.
So nearly 137 times the number of people in the last 10 years died on the road vs. terrorism, and yet how much money is spent on traffic safety vs. Homeland (In)Security?
It's a good analogy. What they've done at the airports is banning hamburgers in cars. Yes, eating hamburgers in cars kills people. But, no, it's not worth the cost of banning hamburgers to save a few lives.
Am I missing something here?
We're living with a re-election bid from 2004. The problem of terrorists using airplanes as weapons was solved over a field in Shanksville, PA one hour after we knew we were under attack. Ordinary Americans quickly discerned the appropriate response, and everything since then has been the Government trying to protect us from the Boogeyman as a cover for expanding the power of government.
Every candidate for President this next go-around (save Ron Paul) wants to continue this charade.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Israel has been doing this for quite a while and has been quite successful in preventing terrorist incidents as a result.
A friend was flying out of Logan airport on the morning of Sept 11. His gate was right next to that for AA 11. He saw Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers on that flight. Their behavior and facial expressions immediately attracted his attention and should have attracted attention from the authorities.
not having to basically disrobe going through a security gate
Calling the removal of one's jacket and shoes "basically disrobed" is like calling ice "basically melted".
In the 6 years since 9/11, I've never been asked to remove any piece of clothing that I wouldn't normally remove once I've entered a building (hat, gloves, jacket). That's not counting shoes, which most people remove without a second thought upon entering somebody's house.
Man, I'm glad somebody else here isn't taking crazy pills. I mean, behavior profiling is wrong?! If we shouldn't make judgments about people based on their behavior, what exactly should we use?
If by behavior you mean "someone got caught by the x-ray machine trying to sneak a bomb onto a plane", then I whole heartedly agree with you. However, if by behavior you mean shaking someone down for "looking suspicious" without any evidence other than your "magical-and-not-released-to-the-public-for-the-publics-own-safety" snake-oil method of determining that someone "looks" suspicious, then I call bullshit. I would rather see (if I had no other choice) security checks at airports stepped up for EVERYONE even more than their current levels than remaining quiet while the government tells us that they have developed new studies (that they will not release) that allow them to determine who to detain before they have actually committed a crime.
Stop being so damned afraid of your own shadow.
Clearly, Israel should just let terrorists keep hijacking their airplanes, lest someone on slashdot compare them to the Nazis.
if(male) printf("I hope she sits next to me!\n"); else printf("I hope he does not sit next to me!\n");
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Again, a nice try, asshole...
WHO is responsible for almost ALL terrorism in the world today? WHO lives in white people's countries and wants to KILL US? Surely not the muslims?
I take it you visited prophetofdoom.net and read some of it? Or was it too scary for your head in the sand attitude?
"Most Muslims are unwilling to discard the Hadith, knowing that the Hadith form the basis of all things Islam, from laws to rituals, from Muhammad's example to jihad. So they do not deny that their 53-year-old prophet had sex with a 9-year-old girl, they just make up lame excuses, the most common of which is that girls ripen earlier in the hot climate.
And for those who may read this exchange who are wise enough to not simply take our word on the matter and who are interested to see how preposterous it is to claim that Muhammad was not a pedophile, below are a couple of excerpts from Islam's scriptures. Imagine if this was Aisha testifying in Muhammad's child molestation trial. And don't forget that Aisha would be a witness for the defense!
"My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was then brought in while the Messenger was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. Then the men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old." (Tabari IX:131)
"Aisha [who was 9] said, 'I used to wash semen off the Prophet's [who was 53] clothes. When he went for prayers I used to notice one or more spots on them.'" (Bukhari:V1B4N1229-33)"
Anything to say? Mohammed's crimes are well documented - by MUSLIMS, for 1400 years, because they think that EVERYTHING he did was okay! That includes mass murder, multiple rapes, bigamy with 15 'wives' (slaves), and paedophilia.
What do you say about that? Muslims would KILL you for saying that anything their 'prophet' did was wrong. They'd also KILL any muslim who tried to leave their sick, evil CULT. What do you say about that?
Nothing, because you're a typical liberal hand-wringing cretin who can't face reality.
not before long you guys need to stand straight and do the ugly salute if this continues.
time you guys say something about - for us europeans it looks like the next big threat
is coming from the us going all totalitarian.
time to say the annoying words ? all hail the president (j/k) ? you better cure the ill ideas...
Yeah, I'm sure they are looking closely at 'facial expressions'. Probably the dismayed expression of a brown skinned man who is being stared at by 3 security guards.
you need help buddy...
How is ONE PERCENT a big success??
I'd bet that if they screened 70,000 people *completely* at random, they'd have roughly the same results -- about 1% would prove arrestable for some violation or other.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I hate to disagree with you here, but I think your reasoning is backwards - IF, and it is a very BIG if, they could get a computer to accurately be able to measure emotions from body language it would be a hell of a lot more secure than any human being doing it, and I would be all for the system running everything for the simple fact it would not make any mistakes since you would be taking the idiots out of the equation - you stay in line you have nothing to worry about.
Empathy is a unique gift, and is not trainable regardless of any method used. I get my managers telling me that I always "look" like I'm pissed off, and it's not until you actually talk to me that you realize I'm the farthest from it.
BigBrother is suppose to be a frightening thing - although if you think about it, IIRC the real "BigBrother" is nothing but a computer that runs off of logic and that will not make a mistake, you don't get the all around BIGGEST reason for buggy software and that is..... Human error - the ONLY way around that is FOSS for the simple reason that thousands of us idiots can look over everything. Computers don't make the mistakes, the all powerful human being does and is quite damn good at it.
If it were possible for a computer to accurately read emotions, and combine it with body language concluding ones thoughts and intentions - I would be all for it simply because it could be trusted to NOT be biased for any reason what so ever, you screw up you get nailed - no ifs and or buts that the human being would take into account and can be fooled. Just like I would be all for replacing every cop in the US with the same system, I can not count how many times I've gotten in trouble or harassed one way or the other for something, and then turn right around and see some other yahoo get away with something worse than what I did, and Why you may ask? Humans... The other guy knew how to smooze the individual in authority, and I just don't kiss up to jack asses regardless of what it would get me.
Just because I have the facial components organized in such a way that I look like I'm pissed, doesn't mean I am - and because of this, those in authority are immediately on the defensive which comes down to trouble for me. While on the other hand I've known more than a few guys who beat their wives on a nightly basis, deal in the heavy drugs and an all around shady people - BUT, they are awesome at manipulation and getting what they want.
Someone who is really dead set on doing some damage and sacrificing them selves in the process is going to be calm and cool - IIRC the main high jacker on 911 was like this, although someone who has a true empathetic nature about them will be able to tell something is still up - you can not train that.
Humans are very prone to error, all of us in administration/programing know that fact way to much - now we are to be subjected to some error prone moron making the decision on whether or not my next few hours to decades are going to be spent in hell? Just that alone pisses me off, and will consequently make me stand out much more to these fake empaths. How in the hell are these "trainees" suppose to tell the difference between someone who is nervous because they know they are being scrutinized at a distance by extremely unqualified personnel (I would AT LEAST think a degree in psychology would be necessarily to even consider the possibility of this half assed training) or someone who is nervous because they are going to end there life in a short time, taking as much damage with them as possible.
Two people are sitting side by side, both looking down at the floor with there hands folded quietly. Both wearing suits, both sitting very still. One is sad, but holding it in, because they are leaving their loved one for one reason or another, the other is contemplating the after life because of what they are about to do - do we really want a GED drop out with a few days of training to make that decision of who is the danger? Or would they just round both of them up? Or woul
Here's one AC's $0.02 on this topic:
This may be a good move that actually will make air travel more secure.
But...
Who actually thinks a terrorist would try another 9/11? Anyone? I didn't think so.
Anyone with any intelligence would do something else like poison the water supply, "dirty bomb" some major city, etc., etc. WTF are we doing to prevent this?
I agree with other posters that we need to un-tarnish the American image in the world. We lost the "moral high ground" in this terrorism thing a Loooong time ago, it's time America redeems itself.
The current conjecture given for age of the "virgin" Mary is somewhere between 12 and 17 years of age with Joseph expected to be at least 30 years older, as was common during the period. You aren't a Pedophile-loving catholic(or christian) are you!?
You know what would be really fantastic, is if this country developed the technology to reliably match air travelers' luggage with their FRICKIN DESTINATIONS! And maybe then fewer people would look disgruntled (as well as rumpled) in transit, too ...
"But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA."
Let's see. Anger when the TSA agent treats you brusquely, surprise when someone realizes they left a nail file in their purse, contempt for *some* TSA employees who treat you like herded cattle. Seems like they will be detaining a lot of people
[blockquote]For example, in some cultures people don't make eye contact with people in authority.[/blockquote]
I seldom make eye contact with TSA officers, police or other such 'people in authority'. Which is quite sensible since they would quickly see my ever so strong desire to cut them up into little pieces and feed them to sharks. I fucking hate these overgrown-schoolyard-bully morons. I do not exaggerate when I say that I would so happily kill any one of them without even a moments hesitation if the chance arose to do it without dying or going to prison. And all of my fellow Americans who want to keep this country headed right into the oh so super secure abyss of totalitarianism. F U. And please die. I look at these modern day SS officers with the hate and disgust that they so richly deserve. Seriously folks it's getting to the point where our government needs to go down. Hard.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
It's amazing what sort of powers you can bestow on a person with a GED and a power trip. I'm so pissed to even BE in an airport anymore that I am sure to get flagged by one of these beings with superior cognitive abilities.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
I think he just gave me a terrorist look! But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA.
The average passenger nowadays lives in fear of flight delays/cancellations (or ironically a fear of terrorism!), is angry at the treatment they often receive and holds a lot of the airlines in contempt. So I'm not quite sure how the "terrorist look" will differ from the "average passenger look".
You've got it all wrong, Israeli security thoroughly vets you against all available databases before you even arrive at the airport. Every passenger, no exceptions. They don't need to look at your facial expressions, they'll have decided if you're suspicious before you even leave your driveway.
And if you're an Arab and you have even the remotest connection to anything suspicious you're not getting on that plane, period. And if they have little choice, perhaps because you're Palestinian or Israeli, then you're going to be harassed by security like you wouldn't believe. They're notorious for this.
However, if you can prove your bloodline to be Jewish, you're in and cleared, because I guess the thinking is that no Jew would blow up a plane full of Jews. I suppose this is true, as far as I know.
And yes, it works, but absolutely not because of reading facial expressions.
Ok, so now anyone who shows symptoms of anxiety is going to be targeted as a potential threat? I'm sorry, but unless you have YEARS of INTENSE training in a topic as complicated as subtle facial expressions, your ability to properly read a person's face is worthless. You're talking about the average security employee who's not going to take anything more into account than first impressions and stereotypes.
This only gives security employees an excuse to target anybody they feel like, for any reason. "We tasered that 90 year old grandmother because her cheek twitched". You know, I think the US really is reaching that point where everything is going to fall apart, and the country is going to fall flat on its face. And the rest of the world really isn't going to care.
"Land of the free and home of the brave"? This troll scoffs.
That'd just make you a prime suspect - the guy/gal who's obviously trying too hard to blend in and appear uninteresting. That's really what makes this sort of system scary - the more you try to consciously act natural, the more you stand out as an anomaly.
Note the quote. In TFA, the TSA spokesman said vagueness.
Hyperactivity is not unstimulated fidgetyness, but overstimulated fidgetyness. It is caused by neurological over-reaction to either stimulus from the environment, or from (unknown) internal neurological activity. There's no way this can avoid affecting "micro expressions". Trying to apply neurotypical behavioral rules to an autistic is bound to fail. This is a big part of why HFAs have such trouble fitting in in school. HFAs have normal or higher than normal intelligence, but poor social adaptability because of their inability to correctly express themselves nonverbally.
Don't believe the crap about "micro expressions" - if it isn't total TSA BS, then the micro-expressions are probably on the order of several tenths of a second, not 1 or 2 hundredths. I seriously doubt that mere training alone would enable a person to see something that occurs in 1 or 2 hundredths of a second. If so, movies and TV wouldn't work - they flash frames for 30-35 milliseconds (25 per second) (for movies, with a blank screen in between) to give a smooth appearance of movement. If human eyes could catch 10 millisecond movements, TV and movies would be too jerky to watch, and movies would flash. Every seen an old silent film that wasn't speeded up? They used to be 12-15 frames per second and flashed irritatingly cuz the eye could just barely catch the movement.
The claim of "99%" accuracy IS complete BS - TFA said they were getting 99% false positives. And again, I question whether they tested the accuracy against autistic people to see what the false positive rate is for them.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
To see what position the eye is in, or exactly how the lips tighten, the face must hold the "micro" position long enough to be seen clearly. Visual clarity can not occur faster than the eye's biochemistry can operate. ..." I doubt I'd have body language "open" enough be considered "ordinary" when they scoop up 600 'ordinary' people along with 11 that get arrested.
...the sensitivity TSA is bringing to the program, [Maccario] recalled a meeting with an association for people with Tourette's disorder to assure them that having a tic will not result in a pat-down.
"Persistence of vision" is caused by the finite amount of time required to replenish the rodopsin in the rods/cones of the eye. It is not a cognitive process, and therefore, no amount of training can overcome it.
As TFA says, they've got to look for suspicious behaviors and "vague, evasive responses" along with microexpressions.
"Ordinary people...are much more open with their body movements and expressions
Oh yeah, that's sensitive - marginalizing autism to "having a tic" really makes me think they care. (Tourette's is a form of HFA)
That's why I distrust this - it assumes that if your behaviors aren't "ordinary" as they define "ordinary", then they have probable cause.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
That I looked up Associated Press articles to see if this was true? I couldn't tell if it was real/informative, flamebait/fake, funny/fake, or funny/true. Damn you "Insightful" you tell me nothing!
/.
I fear I've become cynical due to excessive
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
But, out of 600+ comments, I could not find ONE that mentioned how fucked up this will be for people with Aspergers. They are practically defined by their facial ticks and strange/abnormal emotional responses in stress situations, aren't they?
/.
Who are you, and what have you done with the REAL
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
The thing is, your "observant, well-trained professionals" are the SAME GOAT RODEO CLOWNS that are currently "responsible" for "security". They're just getting a different vocabulary to justify detaining and harassing people.
Actually, no. The TFA's poor hiring practices are well-known. Staffing people to sit behind scanning machines is a lot different from providing truly in-depth security training. If the TFA hired and trained security professionals, instead of monitor-watchers, it wouldn't be the same goat rodeo clowns doing the security work.
To a very good approximation, 0% of travelers are terrorists. Treating 100% of travelers like suspected terrorists is simply unacceptable.
To a very good approximation, 0% of all bombs dropped in all wars were nuclear weapons. One black swan is all it takes, and you can bet the Japanese government thought the bomb at Hiroshima was never going to happen. As for treating 100% of travelers like suspected terrorists, using more sophisticated security techniques is less invasive than using the broad-brush techniques in use now.
How would you stop airline terrorism? Or since by approximation 0% of travelers are terrorists, would you simply do away with all airport security?
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