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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.
That's not a problem, it's a solution. It means there need to be more studies, and bigger contracts, to figure out which bits of SPOT do work (read: "none, but who cares if it works as long as we can keep getting funding"), until such time as the political winds shift in favor of some other crackpot in the bureaucracy who's got more money to spend than brains to care about what it's being spent on.
Meanwhile, life once again imitates art:
Without giving away a spoiler to a movie that's 28 years old, Gant's papers were in order: the KGB goon was bluffing, trying to provoke a reaction.
Every time I travel by air, I watch the first half of Firefox, and every year, the part where Clint Eastwoodfails to bluff his way through Moscow's airport seems a bit less like an American director's 1982 portrayal of the USSR, and feels a little more like home. Problem is, there's nowhere left to fly to, even if you did get your hands on a Mach-5 capable thought-controlled stealth plane.
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.
Anyone who is that good at reading people,
has a better job than TSA screener.
expandfairuse.org
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?
You are shooting off the hip and apperantly you haven't flown with El Al or have been flying out of Israel on another airline.
I've done both, which is exactly why I know that anyone who seriously suggests that Western airlines should adopt Israeli practices has no clue. Even if they worked, they would never be accepted in a politically correct Western nation.
They screen EVERYONE. Not everyone's name sounds jewish.
Do you seriously think they're as likely to search a Jewish Israeli passenger as they are a Palestinian or an Iranian Muslim? We're talking about a country which has real terrorist threats to deal with on a regular basis, not a politically correct Western nation which believes it has to strip-search a Christian grandmother as counterbalance every time they search a young Muslim man.
and you know this how?
Because they wouldn't treat passengers they way they do otherwise. The last time I flew out of Israel the 'security' at the next row over had a blonde German girl literally in tears; do you really think she's ever going back there?
I should add that I couldn't care less what Israeli security do as I never intend to go there again and it's there country so what they do at their airports is their choice; but if such measures were imposed in America and Europe I'd take a boat next time I had to cross the Atlantic.
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...
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Fine. Observing passengers for potential cues is security theater. Then explain to me, how exactly is airplane security is going to work? You can't possibly strip search everybody, no one would fly. Having everybody fly naked is not an option either, as is having everybody be sedated and tied to their seats.
As securing all passengers with 100% failproof methods is far more intrusive than what's currently proposed, we need to look elsewhere. We know that the no-fly list is bogus because it is secret and non-appealable. We know that removing all liquids is dumb as well, because you're a) always behind the curve in what terrorists will try, and b) because most of the hare-brained ideas won't work anyway.
So what's left? We are pretty much left with SPOT: the observation of human behavior to indicate who gets special treatment. It is the only thing that can work, because it keys on the only thing common among terrorists: their plan, and the impact on human physiology of planning a suicide. Will innocent people be subjected to extra searches? They sure will. But behavioral observation - if done correctly, and yes, that's a big if - is the only real profiling technique that has any chance of not falling into obvious traps.
Finally, for an insight into how and why it works, look at the security at the Tel Aviv airport. They have some spectacular saves that would have failed with any other technique short of getting lucky with a random search.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
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.
I fly to and from Britain about 10 times a year and I actually lived in Scotland for 5 years. I get stopped quite often by those guys, probably on the ground that I'm quite fair skinned but have a bushy black beard and hair and look quite intellectualish-nerdish. Then I hand over my Italian passport and they start asking if I've been to Syria, Lebanon or Palestine or the Middle East. I answer with my best possible Glasgwegian accent that no, i've never been there and that I'm a software developer living on the continent catching up with my dearest mates and girlfriend back in Maryhill and that mainland europe is terrible and i'm moving back the soonest, honest. Then they laugh and let me go. On the other side, when I go through border control wearing a palestinian kefiah they never stop me. They're a leftover of the civil war in Ulster, apparently trained in remembering all the mugshots of IRA-affiliated people. Now they're a bit useless I guess.
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.