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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.
Look! An Arab! Go gettem!
From the title, I was expecting it to be psychically trained TSA agents.
Dogs are very important to airport security.
When it comes to matters of the government, pseudoscience is the best kind of science!
Stupid Procedures for Opressing Travelers
Have gnu, will travel.
Who says he didn't?
You should see how they inspect ships delivering food and supplies!
what I do is just not shower for a few days before, that way it's "in soviet russia, I abuse airport security"
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That's spacious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Thank you, dear. Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Oh, how does it work? Lisa: It doesn't work. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: It's just a stupid rock. Homer: Uh-huh. Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you? [Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money] Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock. Taking more precautions, good. Security theater, racial profiling, etc, bad.
What do you do if you arch enemy IS 72 virgins?
I'm glad some NAZIs finally got you, even if they weren't Grammar NAZIs. :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
Damn. I'd TOTALLY sign up for that job. Rolling a d100 vs warrants? SWEET!!!!
Only one question....could I use 2d10 instead sometimes, if there are a lot of people? I know they don't work out the same, but they are close, and d100 takes a DAMN long time to come to a halt....
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
The laugh is terrorist organisations know about SPOT and train what is called "clean skins" to get past all this crap. Usually they use well educated young people and dress them in designer western clothes and train them to use mental triggers so they never look nervous or out of place. The only thing SPOT will find is some poor bastard who hates flying or is worried when he gets were ever he is going will he be on time.
The only thing SPOT will find is zen meditation masters who can endure any hardship without emotion and medicated people. Everyone else that goes though the current airport fake security fascism, terrorist or not, will have the same pissed off look.
The treatment of arayan-looking german individuals by jewish security may not be exactly the best example you could have chosen...
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
You forgot to add "naked".
Wooa!?
Am I wrong or you are suggesting that we start training dogs to sniff & detect terrorists? Not by detecting explosives or some other chemical, but by detecting their connection with the devil. You know, dogs can can be trained to sniff just about anything these days..
And "covered in hot grits".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Don't worry, it's not just the airport.
Someone drives into an airport in a burning car - probable terrorist.
Someone walks into airport - probable non-terrorist.
Easy.