Slashdot Mirror
The Men Who Stare At Airline Passengers, Coming To the UK
An anonymous reader writes, "The Economist's Gulliver reports on a story in Nature that questions the current airport security regimen," excerpting: "Over the past four years, some 3,000 officers in America's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have been specially trained to spot potential terrorists at airports. The programme, known as SPOT, for Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, is intended to allow airport security officers to use tiny facial cues to identify people who are acting suspiciously. The British government is currently launching a new screening regime modelled on the Americans' SPOT. There's just one problem with all this: there's no evidence that SPOT is actually effective. The whole thing is mostly based on pseudoscience, Sharon Weinberger reports in Nature."
Happily, Nature's original article is available in full, rather than paywalled.
That's funny. I travel to the US with my Japanese wife and my two small children annually. I've had nothing but a pleasant time flying into SFO. Then again, I'm an American, as are my children. Maybe they like having us back home and would rather you take your Anglo self through another country on your way to, I'm guessing, Canada. Or maybe it's because I know how to deal with American law enforcement types. Looks like it worked. One less family transiting the US.
And, you would be extremely stupid to cash a check for a woman who refused to show her face to you. You would be even stupider to accept an ID and insurance information after an accident, if the other driver refused to show his/her face to you. You would be far beyond stupid if you were looking for an escaped convict, and failed to check the "little old lady" wearing a burqha. Are you even sure that she was really a she?
Anyone who refuses to show their face cannot claim to be an American. I don't give a rat's ass what their excuse is. In America, we don't hide our identities, and we don't use religion as an excuse to do so.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I call bullshit. People who drag their old cultures here aren't Americans. Their children might be Americans, their grandchildren almost certainly will be, but the camel jockeys who force their women to observe the old country's way of living aren't Americans.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br