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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.
Chalk it up as a boondoggle and consider it part of the economic recovery plan.
There's just one problem with all this: there's no evidence that SPOT is actually effective.
And this matters to airport security because?
from January 2006 through to November 2009, behaviour-detection officers referred more than 232,000 people for secondary screening, which involves closer inspection of bags and testing for explosives. 1,710 were arrested. Those arrests are overwhelmingly for criminal activities, such as outstanding warrants, completely unrelated to terrorism. The program has never resulted in the arrest of anyone who is a terrorist, or who was planning to engage in terrorist-related activity.
Shut it down!! This is an incredible waste of passenger time and taxpayer money. I wonder where they got those numbers from.. I'd love to see more numbers.. like how many actual terrorist arrests there have been for all passengers screened.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Well, the stronger cockpit door was an improvement... But for everything else, it's all about "appearing" to be more secure.
The post-9/11 airport has been all about security through showmanship.
Anyone who is that good at reading people,
has a better job than TSA screener.
expandfairuse.org
The sociopaths and other determined criminals will slip through the cracks. If you were looking forward to seeing 72 virgins or having the opportunity to stick it to your arch-enemy, would you not greet them with genuine smiles and cheer in anticipation?
Particularly, it makes me sad when people say that aversion of gaze is an indicator of dishonesty. Autistic or Asperger-types would be treated like crooks simply because eye contact is too overwhelming for them. Visual people may glance away after a question because they are diverting their resources to minimize distractions to use visual memory answering the questions(many people like to say that looking up == honest while looking down == dishonest -- sounds like a lame generalization to me).
Others may glance away because being preemptively treated like a crook is intimidating, especially because dealing with the DHS is often a staring contest. Questions asked are rapid-fire, meaning that a person appears to be in the wrong if analytical or insecure types have the honesty to give a complete answer. Microexpressions are often ambiguous and the interpretation of them is tanted by the subject being under pressure.
In short, it's a dumb idea and it makes me angry.
The fact that there were no attempts or successes during that period is evidence that it's not needed. Terrorism is a very small threat compared with things like cancer, dieing in a non-terrorist plane crash and any number of real problems. Terrorism happens to be very flashy, but the reality is that even with the policies in place prior to 9/11 it was a very unlikely event that terrorists would have any meaningful luck.
Whereas you've got the government scaring the crap out of people without terrorist help. Of course terrorists aren't bothering to do it, the US government is doing a superb job of keeping people terrified.
Can you explain how having an officer look at you is a violation of civil liberties?
You're in public, after all. It's not like you're being observed in your home. While I don't see how the SPOT program actually accomplishes anything, I really don't see how it's going to violate our freedoms. Law enforcement doesn't need a warrant to check you out as you stand in line to check your luggage. And it might just be that having trained observers in airports would force terrorists to work a little harder.
We've got to be careful of crying wolf when we complain about intrusion into our lives. We gave away most of our liberties in the US with the PATRIOT Act and the warrantless wiretapping. For us to now say "you can't look at us" is taking our eye off the ball, which is to reverse the outrageous parts of PATRIOT and return some sanity to counter-terrorism.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The point is not that an airport official will be watching passengers in an attempt to spot terrorists. The point is that there is a possibility that someone stressed, sick, distracted or socially inept- all of which could make a person seem "suspicious"- will be accosted or even held despite complete innocence of terrorism. It's "security theater" to a T: it gives the appearance of safety and security without actually providing any of the substance.
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
Of course, that would give them away. No one goes through a US airport with genuine smiles and cheer anymore.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Beard? You're suspicious.
Dark skin? Pulled out of line.
Head or face covering required by your religion? Come to the airport an extra hour early.
White, clean-shaven, wearing a Yankees ballcap and a Tap Out t-shirt? We're cool, keep moving.
That's why it potentially violates civil rights: it's a codification of reasons to discriminate based on outward appearance which, I absolutely guarantee, isn't limited to "flopsweat in 70 degree weather and looks like he's ready to bolt for an exit".
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
When you have access to virtually unlimited budget and manpower, you have to be creative when coming up with new ways to expand your empire. I think homeland security in the U.S. and the U.K. would be much more efficient and quite possibly more effective if we cut their budget by 50%.
From the fine article:
And:
But he's opposed to anyone actually trying to test SPOT scientifically. That would be "totally bogus,"
You have got to be kidding me.
This is the new phrenology.
I'll state his real reason for avoiding peer review, it's taken from the above quote:
He says he now avoids peer-reviewed journals because they're read closely by scientists
Soon, someone is going to revive the phlogiston theory of fire.
--
BMO
Fine. Observing passengers for potential cues is security theater.
No. Observing passengers for MEANINGLESS cues is security theater,
Finally, for an insight into how and why it works, look at the security at the Tel Aviv airport.
Yes, let's look at what happens at Tel Aviv - they extensively interview every passenger. SPOT does not even come close to what happens in an israeli airport. Nor do we face the threat that israeli airports face either. They have a much higher risk and a much lower number of passengers - roughly one day's worth of passengers through Kennedy is equal to a year's worth of passengers through Tel Aviv.
So basically the behavioural profiling that is applied to israeli flyers has nothing in common with SPOT- and it never will because applying the same techniques to flyers in the USA would require tens of billions of dollars.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
What else should we do? All I see for it is to accept the risk an move on.
Don't get me wrong, there have been more than a few nice saves by real security, and I expect that as the technology progresses, they'll get better, but on the scale of risks including airplane hijacking or terrorism, I take a much larger personal risk every time I drink the water around here, let alone drive somewhere.
You can't make life safe. Not from accidents and certainly not from the deliberate acts of other people. If you can't accept that, then you might as well euthanize yourself, because you'll spend every waking moment in fear of what could be.
I needed a sig so people would know who I am, but I was too drunk to make something witty, so you get this instead.
"But behavioral observation ... is the only real profiling technique that has any chance of not falling into obvious traps."
What nonsense did you use to arrive at that conclusion?
SPOT has been proven ineffective. Searches are partially effective. How can you say that only SPOT has any chance of success?
Furthermore, you assert that having innocent passengers subject to extra search. How far are you willing to take this? Anyone that looks suspicious should be turned away from the airport? You've arbitrary drawn the line at "it's acceptable to subject innocent people to extra searches", there's no reasoning not to draw the line at any other place.
We simply have to admit that FLYING ISN'T FUCKING 100% SAFE BECAUSE NOTHING IS. It's safer than driving a car for fuck's sake, if you're willing to drive a car then you should have no problem flying in a plane. At least with a terrorist you have the chance to tackle them on the plane and beat them to a pulp before they can blow anything up. You don't even have a fighting chance against, say, a drunk driver running a light.
PROTIP: See someone trying to light their shoes or balls on fire? Tackle them.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I have no particular problem with the idea of observing passengers for suspicious behavior. It's security theater because it doesn't work.
Read the Nature article that was linked, and you'll see the following statistic: From January 2006 to November 2009, these SPOT officers singled out over 232,000 people for further inspection. Of these, 1,710 were arrested. Of THOSE, zero were terrorists.
Let's set aside the fact that these programs are ostensibly about stopping terrorism and instead consider it a victory if anybody was arrested for anything at all--a metric which makes it look much better. 1710/232000 is 0.74%. They have a success rate equal to grabbing one out of every 134 people who pass through the security checkpoints randomly.
Now I'm not sure what a philosophical debate on what a successful program is would turn up, but surely we can agree that 1% success rate is a failure? And this aspires to that level of failure. If these 3,000 officers make $50,000 a year each, we paid $575,000,000 in that approximately 46 month time period to catch 1,710 people of various, non-terrorism-related crimes. Or about $336,257 per arrest. Roughly two officers employed in the program per arrest made.
Now fast forward back to reality where the purpose of these programs is to make airports and air travel more safe and realize its complete and utter lack of success. Go further in understanding that while these numbers are helpful in making an evaluation, these numbers are PEOPLE who are questioned, searched, potentially delayed and detained to arrest a criminal less than one percent of the time. Take another step and consider the philosophical implications of detaining people because they look wrong to you, and the horrendous abuses--conscious or unconscious--that this permits.
Hoo boy. That's why this is ridiculous security theater, and why it needs to be stopped.
What's the solution, you ask? Honestly, I agree with another reply to you: The solution is to accept that there is a risk in flying and move on. The reality is that there is more risk of you dying in a plane crash than a terrorist activity aboard your plane, and obviously far less risk of dying related to air travel than there is simply driving to work in the mornings. And really, the best this airport security can ever hope to accomplish is to force a terrorist to detonate their bombs in crowded security lines instead of crowded airplanes.
Why we've spent hundreds of millions on this program and billions overall on the charade... well it isn't beyond me, it's politics. It's not about safety. It's about an illusion of safety. There's some value to that, but not so much as we spend.
Don't get me wrong, there have been more than a few nice saves by real security,
Really?
I try to pay attention and I haven't seen a single one in the news.
What I have seen are people getting busted for drugs and people stupid enough to forget they have a gun or knife in carry-on. They even busted a guy in florida for having bomb materials - unassembled and in his checked luggage. They even chalked that one up as a win to this SPOT program - despite the fact the guy had no intent or ability to harm the flight, my guess is that he was baked and they cued in on that, expecting another drug bust.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
They should just buy a huge plate of ham sandwiches, and those who take a bite and swallow are waved through, while the rest get the royal treatment.
This might be frighteningly close to the truth. I am not claiming this is the (only) motive behind SPOT - but it does make it possible to single out all those suspicious-looking non-aryan foreigners, while ensuring the persons who do so have a vocabulary of bullshit to draw on if questioned (so we can avoid the true, but unmentionable, "he looked muslim").
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