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$1B TSA Behavioral Screening Program Slammed As "Junk Science"
schwit1 writes The Transportation Security Administration has been accused of spending a billion dollars on a passenger-screening program that's based on junk science. The claim arose in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has tried unsuccessfully to get the TSA to release documents on its SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques) program through the Freedom of Information Act. SPOT, whose techniques were first used in 2003 and formalized in 2007, uses "highly questionable" screening techniques, according to the ACLU complaint, while being "discriminatory, ineffective, pseudo-scientific, and wasteful of taxpayer money." TSA has spent at least $1 billion on SPOT. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2010 that "TSA deployed SPOT nationwide before first determining whether there was a scientifically valid basis for using behavior detection and appearance indicators as a means for reliably identifying passengers as potential threats in airports," according to the ACLU. And in 2013, GAO recommended that the agency spend less money on the program, which uses 3,000 "behavior detection officers" whose jobs is to identify terrorists before they board jetliners.
TSA is a place where money goes to be spent on the premise that spending money on things which do nothing is better than doing nothing, even if the outcomes are the same.
They have a blank check to spend money on stuff with no proof it has any value.
Other than harassing everybody, the TSA has accomplished very little. It's become a money pit which pretends to be keeping us safe.
The TSA can point to very few incidents where they've actually stopped anything related to terrorism. Mostly they just serve to annoy everybody else.
Meanwhile, the baggage handlers are the ones who keep getting caught smuggling stuff.
The TSA is a pathetic joke, beefed up by reactionary politicians, and which utterly has failed to make anybody "safer" by any objective measure. In fact, everything they do seems to be devoid of "objective measure".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I refuse to visit the US because of this. It's not because of the people.
When the TSA makes unreasonable demands of me and they try to explain it with "if you have nothing to hide..." I'll have a very hard time not to reply with "Post your private parts on the internet. Or do you have something to hide?"
I don't think this tactic would go well over for the TSA employees. :)
I recall going through security at the Charlotte, NC airport once, a few years ago, and noticed TSA agents out in the queue making smalltalk with all of the passengers. "Hey, how are y'all doin' today?", "Goin' someplace warm?", "Be sure to take off that belt buckle sir.", "Were are y'all headed?", "Y'all fly much?", and so forth. At first I thought that this was a misguided effort at public relations. But then it occurred to me that those agents were probably pre-screeners looking for nervous and evasive passengers who would then be subjected to additional traditional screening. I don't know what SPOT is and have no opinion of its effectiveness. But it seems to me that chatting up passengers in order to spot potential trouble-makers is probably the single most effective part of the whole TSA process.
Let's just call it like it is. People are dumb. The monumental stupid that is around me just boggles the mind. I'll relate an example. My local HOA over the last two weeks had a Facebook board post frenzy about a guy who is wandering through the neighborhood rifling through people's unlocked cars. He (or they) leave the unlocked cars alone. Yet the people refuse to lock their car doors. Last Friday, one person's car was stolen, a BMW SUV with the keys in the car, doors open, left unattended and started to warm up on a 45 degree F day. (no warming required, really, for those who can't picture this) There's even a state law against doing just that. There's someone wandering around pillaging unlocked cars, and you leave your car started in front of your house? These people are allowed to vote and participate in society.
Anyway, this level of stupid is one thing. The levels of stupid I see a couple towns over where people get their drugs are...stunning. Imagine CL ads where they list their phone numbers and "420 friendly" or "I'm holding" in the ad?
Politicians know this is their constituency and they play to it. How do you think that dumb hopey changey shit worked? Very stupid people voting.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I'm a frequent traveler and see the TSA has 90% theatre.
Do you care to identify the 10% that you consider non-theater? Because I travel often, and I don't see it. There is, for example, not even a consistency with respect to how they do pat-down when you refuse the scanners. It really seems like they are making it up as they go along (or maybe it is city-based, I haven't compiled data). The only consistent thing they are taught to do is to check behind the ankle.