Airport Profilers Learn to Read Facial Expressions 676
nldavepc writes "There has been a rather scary development in airport security. Airport profilers are watching people's facial expressions for clues of terrorist intent. According to the article,"Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.""
Anny connection to this? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What is a terrorist facial expression? (Score:3, Informative)
"The problem is behavioral characteristics will be found where you look for them," the American Civil Liberties of Massachusetts legal director John Reinstein told The Washington Post.
I happen to agree with him.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:4, Informative)
I wished I could say we don't go out and invade other countries illegally (since we are part & parcel of the lapdog parade and have sent our military into Iraq as well, which in the longer term will hopefully lead to the jailing of those responsible, if they don't manage to squash the investigations over and over again).
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes, you are mistaken... (Score:3, Informative)
Airport Screeners (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Predicted long ago (Score:3, Informative)
It's the assignment of unregulated power to non-elected government officials, based purely and entirely on the judgment of that individual without any form of external oversight into the correctness, fairness, or legitimacy of those judgments. That person decides whether you make your flight on whatever whim he or she feels like. People, being human beings, WILL abuse this. It's not a matter of IF, it's a matter of how often, only we have no way of telling, and no way to identify or regulate the abuse.
The benefits (if any, which is certainly arguable) do not come even CLOSE to outweighing the cost and risks.
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:1, Informative)
I strongly feel that the US should focus more on taking away the causes of all this senseless terror. You might feel safe but the root of the evil is still there.
Really? Go read the fatwa of Osama bin Laden from 1996 [pbs.org]. His main complaint is that American infidels were defiling the "land of the two holy places" (ie Saudi Arabia) by their presence in the country. Why were the Americans in Saudi Arabia? Because the Saudis invited them there to protect the country.
You cannot reason with this kind of religious extremism - it is kill or be killed.
(Incidentally, when the Saudis asked the Americans to leave, they left)
The Jews got killed in WWII, so the were a bit pissed (and reasonably so). So they went of and conquered themselves some Palestinian land, thus making these guys unhappy (again, reasonably so).
Conquered Palestinian land? Absolutely not. The British Mandate of Palestine was picked by the British from the collapsing Ottomans, who ruled the area for centuries. The British took the vast majority of the Mandate's land and created an new Palestinian Arab state called Jordan. The remainder of the Mandate was kept by the British until after World War II ended.
Faced with competing claims to the remainder of the Mandate territory from Arabs & Jews, the Brits turned the problem over to the United Nations. After investigating & consulting with all parties, the UN decided to split the remainder of the Mandate territory into two states, one for Arabs and one for Jews, with international status for Jerusalem (sound familiar?). This two-state solution was unacceptable to the Arabs, and they declared war (and lost).
In 1967, when Egypt ordered the UN peacekeepers to leave, and blockaded an international waterway (an act of war), Israel responded, and the Arabs lost (again).
The Arab-Israeli wars are still ongoing. Israel never claimed the West Bank and Gaza as their own - the land is not conquered.
Jews blow Lebanon to pieces with some clusterboms and padabing padaboom, you have a full scale war on your hands.
Are you referring to the most recent conflict in Lebanon? Let us review:
Hezbollah, with the consent of the Lebanese government, sent a group of armed men across the internationally recognized border between Lebanon & Israel. These men killed & captured a number of Israeli soldiers. Now, when you send a group of armed men across the border to attack the armed forces of another country, that is an act of war. Israel responded with war, and Lebanon got fucked (again). War is a terrible thing, causing great suffering, destruction and loss of life. Maybe the Lebanese won't be so quick to start a war next time.
Why do you think North Koreans are so pissed?? Because they like to lob a nuke in our backyard and because they think this will make things better for them? NO!!!! Because they are piss poor
Are you referring to ordinary North Koreans? Their opinion doesn't matter in the slightest - they do what the dictatorship tells them, or they get sent to the gulag & killed.
The North Korean leadership is a typical dictatorship trying to stay in power. The support they used to get from China & Russia has been falling off, and they are getting nervous since they drove their own economy into the ground and can't even feed themselves.
The hungry & angry North Korean people are a potential threat to the North Korean leadership, but not anyone else.
Re:Yes, you are mistaken... (Score:3, Informative)
Since there were more cars on the road in 07, and more Americans of driving age, that seems to demonstrate some combination of the above (Less Driving, more efficient (slower) driving, or more efficient cars).
Still, the fact that we weren't able to actually REDUCE usage shows that we're not being as prudent as we should be.
What has happened, though, is that people are spending less on dining out, holidays, and other "disposable income" type things. Rather than change their driving habits, they make cuts elsewhere to offset the higher costs. That surprises me. My dad owns a couple Sunoco franchises here in Ohio. One thing he's noticed is that in-store sales have taken a HUGE hit. That's unfortunate because gas stations make most their profit from store-sales and make very little (and sometimes lose money) on gas sales. The gas is just to reel you in. The 300% markup on candy bars and the 1400% mark-up on fountain drinks are where they make most their money.
This is way off target, but it's something I find interesting.
I bought a Volvo S60 a couple years ago. It's the first car I owned that had a readout of the _instantaneous_ gas mileage. It's not uncommon to have the Average MPG readout, which the S60 also has, but you can flip it over to show you your instantaneous MPG at any given time, updated once per second.
Anywho, I was stunned to see how much gas is wasted in city driving. It comes almost exclusively from the first 10-20 seconds after pulling away from a stop. The combination of the rolling-resistance and the fact that 1st is the most inefficient gear blows my mind: I'd press my foot to the gas with medium pressure--not tearing away from the light--and my MPG goes like this, (updated once per second): 12MPG, 8MPG, 5MPG, 5MPG, 5MPG, 5MPG, 8MPG, 10MPG, 12MPG, 16MPG, 20.... etc..
and when you floor it from a light, it literally goes down to 1MPG.
The secret is to go as gentle as possible on the throttle. On the highway, of course, anything over 70MPH and you're killing your MPG. But even if you ALWAYS go 65 and not a mile above, if you don't change driving habits in city-driving, you won't notice a DENT on your MPG.
I shake my head now as I see people racing from stop light to stop light. And even if there's no other light in sight, the racing from 0 to the speed limit is just STUPID and it's KILLING their MPG.
I swear, it's my totally non-scientific belief that if Americans would just change the way we drive, we could probably cut our usage of OPEC oil ENTIRELY. Not to mention, it's easier on your brakes, your cooling system, and your suspension.
Fast driving is not the problem. Quick acceleration is the problem. My car is a turbocharged 5 cylinder engine, but I can still get 30+MPG at 75MPH w/ my cruise set.
I now only need to fill-up 3 times a month instead of 4. That's saving me 18 gallons of gas and $700 a year.
And, of course, the kicker to this argument is that the perception of speed is NOT the same as actually being speedy. Unless you're talking long-haul commutes, accelerating fast from a light might save, what, a couple minutes? And driving 90 on the e-way instead of 60 on your 20-mile commute to work means that you'll be getting there 7 minutes before me, but you used 1.2 gallons of gas, and I used 0.75 gallons.
I never thought about gas mileage until that readout on my dash put it bluntly in my face.
Perhaps the only thing better would be if it actually output how much it's costing in DOLLARS not MPG. Figure that out (maybe a bluetooth connection that tells your car the price of gas as you fill up) and mandate it in every car and I'd bet you'll see a real reduction in gas usage.
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:2, Informative)
Not sure which Iraq war you are referring to, but I presume the 1991 war. In that war Iraq invaded & conquered its wealthy neighbor, Kuwait. Aside from a few kooks like Yasser Arafat, no one supported Iraq's conquest of Kuwait. Driving Iraq from Kuwait was the right thing to do(TM).
Although many of the Israeli settlements are on land owned by the Palestenians. Not disputed land (okay, well I guess now it is disputed), but land that the Palestinians have and have always had property rights to. Israel has no incentive to honor the Palestenian rights, not because the Israelis are Jewish but because the Israelis are people. And people who have power rarely concede to those without it.
Concede? Haha. The Israelis accepted the original UN peace plan dividing the remainder of the British Mandate territory into Arab and Jewish states, the Arabs did not.
After the Arabs lost the 1967 war, the Arabs held a conference in Khartoom, Sudan. Some call it the three-no conference - the Arab states made three declarations there: No recognition of Israel, No negotiations with Israel and No peace with Israel. By and large, that continues to this day.
After Egypt made peace with Israel, Israel forcibly removed all Israeli citizens and gave the Egyptians their land back.
After the Oslo accords that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, the PA was supposed to crack down terrorism (they didn't).
Israel has always been willing to concede, for a real peace accord and cessation of hostilities..
And the whole Lebanon situation is rediculous. A couple of Israelis are captured and they send Lebanon back to the stone age.
No, the Lebanese government, without reason, engaged in an act of war with a neighboring state. That started a war. War has EXTREMELY serious consequences, and any country should think twice before starting a war and suffering the consequences.
If I walk up to Mike Tyson and start punching him in the face, is he entitled to hit me back? Is Tyson's punch likely to break my jaw and send put me in the hospital? Whose fault is that, mine or Tyson's?
I don't care if Lebanon striked first (which is crap, since they're been fighting forever),
They haven't been fighting forever. The Israel-Lebanon border has been pretty quiet, except when violence from Lebanon's civil war spilled over and the Israelis were forced to invade in 1982.
Israel likes to portray itself as the "only democracy in the middle east" and the pinnacle of civilization while Hezbollah are a terrorist organization. The whole "but mommy, johnny hit me first!" argument is rediculous. If you want to hold yourself as the f*cking pinnacle of civilization then I expect you to have more restraint than a bunch of terrorists.
Ahh, but this wasn't simply the actions of a terrorist organization. This action was approved by the government of Lebanon. Maybe the Lebanese government should be more careful before engaging in acts of war.
But most of the mayhem, most of the bloodshed, most of the evil, was commited by Isrealis. Israel stooped down to the level of a terrorist organization and then kept on sinking much deeper.
Really? Despite thousands of bombing flights, artillery, tanks & infantry, total Lebanese casualties were close to 1,000, of which the majority were combatants. Look at the amount of ordanance used by Israel and compare that to any other armed conflict. There are two possible conclusions:
1. Israelis cannot hit anything. They kept missing their targets, which is why the number of Lebanese deaths was so low.
2. The Israelis deliberately avoided civilians, which is why the number of Lebanese deaths was so low.
So, if Hezbollah only had more firepower, they'd cease