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.

Comments

Re:Effective...

[apoc.famine]

I severely limit my flying because of this. But last week, I got a "most expenses paid" trip to France courtesy of the school I work for. My observations:

The most stressful part of the trip, as an American who DOES NOT SPEAK FRENCH, was US customs and security. French customs and security? Not a big deal. They treated me like a guest. Even though I spoke about 3 phrases of French, they were kind, friendly, and open.

US security and customs? I was a first-class criminal. "Welcome Home", said the sign above security, after I had gone through customs, AFTER I went through the second, "baggage customs", and stood around for 20 minutes to get my luggage so it could get re-checked, all under the watchful eye of a few police officers. Listening to constant, "recording audio or video in this area is prohibited"...and the rest of the asinine security messages. "Welcome home - please remove your shoes, take everything out of your pockets, show your ID, your boarding pass, put electronics into a separate bin, have your shoes double-checked for explosives, and your bag examined because you....put the second bag of peanuts from the plane in the pocket. Now get patted down for a "secondary security measure, random check". Went to my connecting flight, had been up for 22 hours, 12 hours in the air, 8 hours of lay-over. Collapsed in a chair. Flight started boarding, I said "fuck it", and waited till most people were on. Got up, went to line as the LAST DAMN PASSENGER on a puddle jumper flight, and got selected for a "random search". Really? After I got into that same damn airport, I went through 2 customs checks, a regular "screening", along with an extra random pat-down, and extra "swab shoes for explosives", and an extra "bag check due to suspicious peanuts". After all that shit, I had to take all my crap out of my pockets to be patted down before I hopped a puddle-jumper with 90 people on it to get home.

I went to France. Walked off the plane, through "customs", where I showed my passport, and the guy smiled and waved me on through. The end.

Fuck US security. It's the biggest load of shit ever. And at the end of the day? The hang a fucking "Welcome Home" sign out. If I didn't mind anal probes, I'd attach a "Hope your ass is lubed" sign under that one.

I was pissed at TSA before this trip. Now? If it's not paid for and at least 1000 miles away, or my sister's wedding, I'm not flying. Fuck that shit. Want to know why airlines are hurting? I'll give you a clue...