Slashdot Mirror
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.
"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!"
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
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 -
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.
How would this be different than what they already do? You've got to show ID before you even enter the terminal to head through security. Granted, people could switch boarding passes and get on a different plane, but in the end would that really matter?
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.
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.
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
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
Mustang?
Muskrat?
Muskeg?
Moustache. Moustache. Moustache.
The more you read it, the wronger it looks. But it's moustache.
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.
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 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?
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 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.
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.)
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.
You're a constipated terrorist.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
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?
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.
"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."
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.
Get botoxed before travelling.
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.
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."
I hear ya. I've seen first hand how [sarcasm]productive and efficient[/sarcasm] the govt. and govt programs are. I've had to live through what FEMA did for the NOLA area. I've worked with the Feds on computer projects, etc...and let me tell you, they have NEVER done anything without horrible red tape, politicals making decisions over professionals, and within decent costs. We do need the govt. for certain things...Constitutional type things. Defense...good, infrastructure....good. But, really them being in charge of some things is quite scary. We do need some medical reform in this country. I'd think regulating the insurance, the lawyers, and the HMOs and other for profit leeches that make the system so $$$, and takes the actual Dr's out of the decision loops would be a major start. Also, make it where the insurance co's can't cherry pick only the best people to cover. There is a large sector out there that can easily pay for their coverage IF some one would offer them coverage...at any cost.
But, you think medicine is bad now...wait till the US govt is in charge. We'll sink under the $$$ and bureacracy that will engender. I mean, this IS the same govt. that listened to big drug companies, and refused to let the govt. bargain with drug co's for best pricing.....at least they got it right when they let the VA system do this years back. But, please...with the US govt. already so bought and paid for, do you really think a fair, efficient, flexible (everyone's health needs are different) will magically come about when the US Fed. government takes over?
Like the parent said....look how well they've done TSA (and other programs, isn't US education wonderful these days?).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
Hmmm... the gov't does one thing badly, so the gov't shouldn't do anything? How stupid is that. Hey, I believe in small government, but there is no logic to your argument.
I guess we should all take care of our own roads, buy a fire truck to park in each driveway, take turns policing the streets, pay a local company to do medical research on diseases we don't have (and hardly anyone has), etc.
I have no idea whether government managed health care is a good idea. But politicizing the issue doesn't help us learn anything. If you must bring politics into it, I'll just note that the "tax-and-spend" Republicans haven't done much better at managing the country - the just spend the money on different things.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
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.
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
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.
Apparently you DO become your enemies. Or, at least, the Stasi used the same techniques, and they presumably got it from the Gestapo.
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.
Airport security doesn't get paid well and is an unpleasant job to boot. Therefore, anyone who can get a better job at the same pay will do so. If they can't get a better job, they probably didn't go to college. Obviously, there are many reasons not to go to college, but if you don't you probably weren't valedictorian in high school. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that airport security is not in general composed of well-educated people. I wasn't making a generalization, I was making a reasoned assumption.
. . . 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?
"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?
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that all of the proposed mandatory health insurance plans are just that: mandatory health insurance. The government is in no way going to "take over" healthcare and start running hospitals and put all doctors on government payroll. It is ridiculous to think we would just throw out our entire healthcare industry, as it is one of the biggest parts of our US economy.
What the government would do under some of the proposed plans is make health insurance mandatory. That means that every American will be insured. If they can't afford to pay the premiums, they get government help to pay (your tax dollars at work), but if they're working their premium is usually paid partially by their employer and partially by themselves.
The healthcare system stays the same. You can still pick your doctor, pick your hospital. The coverage is mandatory.
Quit spouting the republican FUD about the government taking over all healthcare. It will never happen. The republicans are trying to sell this image of countries like the UK who actually run their own hospitals and hire doctors. This is pretty inefficient, as we've already proven that capitalism works for things like this.
Most reasonable Americans would agree that everyone should have health insurance. The current system for poor people, which is basically, you wait until you're really sick, almost dead, then go to the emergency room for unscheduled, extremely expensive ($$$) healthcare, which you'll never be able to pay the bill for, doesn't work. What does work and is much less costly ($) is to have everyone insured, so that the poor people have the option of going to a regular doctor who might be able to find and resolve health issues early, before they become major emergency room operations that we all have to pay for indirectly (unpaid emergency room bills increase hospital costs, which increases the rate of all healthcare).
But far be it from the Republican and right-wing controlled media to tell you what the healthcare plans are really about. It sounds much more scary and gets more viewers to show some dingy DMV office with lines out the doors and say "POLITICIAN A WANTS TO TURN YOUR HOSPITALS INTO THIS! STORY AT 11!"
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
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.
[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.