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.""
"behavior-detection officers" (Score:5, Insightful)
check id before get on plane (Score:2, Insightful)
America's getting scary (Score:5, Insightful)
What is a terrorist facial expression? (Score:5, Insightful)
"When someone lies or tries to be deceptive,
Now, creative editing aside (lotsa dots in there), what happens when I display a fear microexpression when I'm asked if I have any bomb?
Because that's what's going to happen, because with all this overhyped security I'm tense and slightly afraid when I'm dealing with these people anyway. Why? Because they have the power, on suspiciuon alone, to really ruin my day, my entire holiday, my business trip or perhaps even my life, depending on just how far they want to take everything.
So yes, when I get a grilling from a security agent, he's going to see fear. And the fact I now know (s)he's looking for it will make it even more likely.
Welcome the new world where paranoia becomes a self fulfilling phenomenon.
False positive much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could you speak up? (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides. I feel safe.
Re:check id before get on plane (Score:2, Insightful)
How would this be different than what they already do? You've got to show ID before you even enter the terminal to head through security. Granted, people could switch boarding passes and get on a different plane, but in the end would that really matter?
Re:False positive much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to cite that? (Score:4, Insightful)
snake oil (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Predicted long ago (Score:2, Insightful)
For this case it is not used to make conviction but to determine if the person could possibly be a threat. As TFA stated only about 10% of the people pulled over actually committed anything, they know that. The Orwellian method is if the person is suspicious then they go to jail.
Re:Note to terrorist self (Score:5, Insightful)
Behavioural profiling (Score:3, Insightful)
Bear in mind you don't get shot for looking suspicious - you just get singled out for further attention. And it's a hell of a lot more positive than profiling on race or blocking people from flying based on their name.
Re:Care to cite that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Predicted long ago (Score:2, Insightful)
uh-oh, better ban sunglasses at airports (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't see people's eyes, it's very difficult to interpret their expressions. Obviously sunglasses-wearing travellers have something to hide. Just to be sure, ship 'em off (modern day transportation of criminals?)
Just as a side-bar, how many of the errrr... ZERO terrorist attacks in the last couple of years would this measure have prevented?
This isn't funny (Score:3, Insightful)
First it's facial expressions, next it will be the thought police.
I wonder if this is evidence-based at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
How did they do the experiments? Did they have a pool of real terrorists and anxious innocent passengers and a way of doing double-blind testing?
Or was it the training just done by some expert consultants who possess an air of authority and a confident manner?
Is this any better than using graphology on the passenger's signature... or having a computer run a quick horoscope... or following the methods of the Malleus Maleficarum? [wikipedia.org]
Is there any, any, any reason at all to believe in the validity of these techniques?
How beautifully naive. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh me too. We all want bad guys doing bad things to be caught. But here on
You might also find the roots of the more prevalent anti-authoritarian attitude here on
I fundamentally do not agree with the current crop of legislators on who is a "bad guy doing a bad thing", and I also fundamentally disagree with using unreliable methods to detect said individuals.
About time they look at my face (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Care to cite that? (Score:2, Insightful)
What, Me Worry? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well spent money and efforts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of 70,000 people that were harassed by these so-called "Airport Profilers", only about 700 of them were found to be guilty of anything at all. That's a pretty lousy false-positive rate of 99%, which means, of course, 69,300 of these people were needlessly bothered and harassed and humiliated and personally violated.
Of the 700 or so that was guilty "of something", none were found to be "terrorists".
Am I missing something here? When was the last time a "terrorist" was found by the TSA in the US? And how much money is being spent on the TSA?
How many people die in traffic accidents per year? 41,000 or so? How many people in the US die of terrorism in the US per year? Let's average over a decade to account for 911. Over the past ten years, an estimated 410,000 died on our roadways, yet only 3000 by terrorists. So nearly 137 times the number of people in the last 10 years died on the road vs. terrorism, and yet how much money is spent on traffic safety vs. Homeland (In)Security? Am I missing something here?
You wonderful hard-earned gun-extracted Tax Dollars being put to such useful and meaningful work!!!
100% fool proof plan to defeat terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)
There it is. Can't get much simpler than that.
That sure didn't cost 500 billion dollars (a staggering number, no matter the value of the American fiat peso these days). Nor were uncounted lives wasted on the deployment of this plan, or the occupation that followed its deployment.
Now that the war is over, and that I've won it, can we fucking stop now? Can we have our airports back? Can we travel freely amongst ourselves without being scrutinized by the sigmoid wielding high school dropouts? Can we speak freely about liberty and freedom of speech without being branded as 9/11 accomplices?
Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?
Re:Scary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Two people walk through airport security, one gets through, the other doesn't.
One person is a normal citizen, who hears about the horrid things that happen to detainees and people at the hands of airport security, cannot miss their flight home to visit their grandma who is about to die from cancer, and only has the bare minimum time to get through security and onto the plane.
The other is an actual INTERPOL top 100 criminal. They have survived for years by being able to control their outward appearance and are a master a social engineering in order to avoid security or police in localities.
Guess which one gets through?
There's an old saying, only the bad hackers get caught. That applies to criminals. 99% of anti-criminal measures in place such as this will only stop the poorly conceived, the unintelligent, or the unlucky. It will do nothing about people determined, intelligent, and with a plan, which is the attributes the supposed terrorists who want to blow up planes have.
I'm all for security measures that work, but these aren't it. And that is assuming you subscribe to the group that believes they really are supposed to help catch criminals instead of just promote a more.... federally empowered american government.
I'm not saying my stance, I'm just saying the sides you can view it from.
Fear, anger, surprise, contempt (Score:4, Insightful)
Fear: I'm afraid that these idiots are the ones in charge of "making air travel safe"
Anger: That so many millions of people buy into the farce that is the TSA
Surprise: That the 85 year old lady in a walker ahead of me in line seems to be the biggest prospective threat of the day
Contempt: Take your pick.
I guess I should stop traveling by air?
And voting for "tax-and-spend" Dems helps? (Score:1, Insightful)
How fucking stupid is that?
Really.
You've got to be utterly unable to add two and two if you think TSA is bad but yet that same government would do a great job providing you medical care.
Geeks Beware; was Re:Racial Profiling (Score:3, Insightful)
1. It targets members of society who have above-average social anxiety, or "deviate from the norm" in some other way. Geeks and Nerds could end up being "more suspicious" simply because they either have mild social anxiety, or because they are "aware" of the facial profiling, hence they appear nervous (because they're thinking "oh crap they're analyzing my face... try to look natural and calm... but don't look like you're trying too hard!" and thus appear to be hiding something).
2. Overall, as soon as you create rules for deciding who gets greater scrutiny, you create a weakness that the enemy can exploit. The enemy knows what they have to train to avoid/circumvent, thus enabling them to suffer detailed searches less often than average, instead of more often (which was the intention). It has been shown many times that the optimal security strategy is often the one that uses perfect randomness, since there is no defense against it (see Schneier's analysis [schneier.com] and this paper [firstmonday.org]).
So, really, coming up with new and fancy ways to profile people isn't all that helpful. (Of course, there's the dim possibility that they are publicly claiming to profile, but are secretly using a random strategy, hoping that the enemy wastes effort in trying to circumvent a non-existent analysis system, thereby making them easier to catch... but somehow I doubt it.)
Re:Predicted long ago (Score:3, Insightful)
I gotta wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
I accidentally beat a polygraph test years ago because I was so uniformly anxious that when I DID lie, the interpreter didn't see it as any different than my other responses.
Parts of the autistic condition are severe ADHD and the inability to read or express thru facial or body expressions. The hyperactivity alone (fidgetyness) can be interpreted as sneakiness or a deceptivity-give-away. Other body language miscues produced will result what appears to be "vague, evasive responses - fear shows itself. When you do this long enough, you see it right away."
Areas crowded with people cause me anxiety by itself, especially if more than one person is trying to talk to me - such as companions, plus airline checkin personnel, and now the body-language gestapo....oops, didn't mean Godwin this, sorry.
I haven't been in an airport since 9/11 and I sure as hell ain't gonna go now.
Re:Behavioural profiling (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really?
In London you do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes [wikipedia.org]
Re:Predicted long ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Government forces should never for any reason be given authoritative powers which are unable to be subject to external oversight.
Maybe you look like the guy who cut him off in traffic this morning. Maybe he decides to detain a large group just before he detains you, to guarantee that you miss your flight before they can process and pass through the previous group. The point is you simply cannot give unchallengeable power such as this to human beings without it being abused, and with such a small success rate, abuse is both certain and unidentifiable.
Counting catching people on outstanding arrest warrants against their success tally is all the more indicative of their low actual success rate. They want to make their numbers look as good as possible, so they include people they probably had prior knowledge of. These are people whose names and pictures are on a computer screen that morning, the officers know to watch out for them, and would be caught completely independent of this bogus system, but they count it as a win to this system in order to at least hit that 1% mark.
Also what do they mean by weapons violations in the above quote? Is this some guy who forgot he had a pocket knife? If it's something more serious like a gun, isn't he again going to get caught in existing security? I would like to see the number of people they caught who would have slipped through normal security. I'd be surprised if it beat 1 in 10 of the people they did arrest. Even fudging their numbers they can't offer a better number than 1% success rate. This program is a failure out the gate, and it is only an opportunity for abuse without oversight.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:4, Insightful)
All the scientific knowledge wasted trying to fight the consequences could be used to fight the causes. But that's way too smart for the current administration to understand.
Let's hope the next is not so stupid, but I don't foresee significant changes.
We, people of the 1st World, will be happily marching towards fascism (again) frightened of those darky, weirdy baddies with long fangs dripping blood. There were the Indians, the Jews, then the Commies, now the Muslims, tomorrow someone else.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:4, Insightful)
I cannot believe you have any significant familiarity with the concept of freedom if you truly believe that arresting people who put up a sign in English represents "freedom". No one could credibly claim this is "freedom" in any reasonable sense of the word.
Having a state police force to monitor people's speech and signs is "freedom"?
The earlier poster was talking about the freedom of individuals to put up signs in whatever language they wish.
In any non-Orwellian fashion, freedom of speech refers to the latter, not the former.
If any English-first people in the US try to pass laws forcing private businesses to put up signs only in English, I predict they'll be shot down by the First Amendment. I certainly hope they will.
Now, does that mean the US is "freer" than any other country? I'd say no. While the US has an extremely strong Bill of Rights, the tentacles of federal agencies and departments -- ATF, Justice have remorselessly expanded over the last few decades.
There was RICO -- to be used only against organized crime. Now it's used routinely. Then there were all the drug laws, and confiscation laws for the "War on Drugs". Look at how widespread that's gotten. Now there's the Patriot Act, to be used only on terrorists.
Does anyone seriously believe that Patriot Act provisions won't be routinely used ten years from now against ordinary citizens in the same way that RICO provisions are now?
The state will monitor people's speech in the US in exactly the same way that it does in Quebec. The ostensible goals will be different, "to prevent terrorism" vs. "preserve linguistic purity", but the effect will be similar.
-Holmwood
Yes, but.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say a busload of nuns, a busload of blind pre-schoolers, a busload of puppies and a busload of apple pies all manage, through some freak accident, to collide with a propane truck -- doing the math, that's a lot of dead nuns, kids, puppies and delicious apple pie, plus a blue collar propane truck driver.
On the other hand, half a dozen guys with nuke components and you end up with all that and maybe a million more?
And yes, I think nuclear terrorism is overstated, and yes the "mushroom cloud" imagery is just a political hot button.
But we're talking worst case scenarios here. And besides, wasn't it, "Could they fly planes into.....naaaaaaah" that got us into this mess to begin with?
Re:Geeks Beware; was Re:Racial Profiling (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither of those references claim that. They may point out that the current system of automatic profiling is worse than perfectly random selection, but they don't claim random selection is optimal. It's nearly useless at finding a rare individual. (If we randomly search 10% of passengers, a terrorist has a 90% chance of getting through.)
The second reference points out that you need to apply the same search criterion to everyone, and you need to make sure that individuals can't easily determine whether they were selected or not (so they can't predict whether they'll be selected next time, when they really are carrying a bomb). You can do that by using random selection, but you can do it better using some of the suggestions in that article.
But the target isn't the 'Interpol top 100' (Score:4, Insightful)
First and foremost, they are screening for suicide bombers and hijackers.. I think it goes without saying that it's difficult to become a seasoned, experienced suicide bomber. Likewise, with a few notable exceptions, hijackers have a pretty long track record of getting busted on their first go-round.
While I'm sure the TSA would be perfectly happy to catch slippery international career criminals, it's the disposable cannon fodder which most concerns them. Just a guess, but I suspect that the TSA officers receive considerably more training in detecting the behavior of these types, than the criminals themselves receive in suppressing the same.
Re:I wonder if this is evidence-based at all? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're looking at it the wrong way. Somebody somewhere is making money from this.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:5, Insightful)
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) -- A large mob of terrorists were gunned-down in front of the White House today, after an attempt to assassinate the President. White House officials called the move "an attack on freedom," while onlookers were not so sure.
"They didn't look like terrorists to me," said John Smith, a local resident. He explains, "these people seemed to be angrily protesting some new government policy. One of them was even waving around a sign saying 'Welcome to China'."
President Bush was unavailable for comment.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:5, Insightful)
"The government is employing state-of-the-art behaviour tracking and monitoring software? Totalitarian! They want to store all your biometric details on a chip on your passport? Totalitarian!"
Fair enough. Now look at this:
"Airport security are being trained to look for unusual behaviour and nervous looks on people's faces? Totalitarian!"
I would be quite upset if airport security *weren't* trained to look for these things. It's not a faceless computer doing the work, it's not a magical checklist in the sky, it's not invasive, it doesn't need strip search, it requires you to carry no more documentation, it won't slow down security. It will help spot people doing unusual things or looking out of place with a certain element of humanity behind it. Yes this may include a few errors, but overall I'm a lot happier with a real human being trained to better spot dodgy behaviour than any of the other stuff.
Not every change to airport security is a massive invasion of your privacy. Grow up and realise that.
Re:100% fool proof plan to defeat terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
- RG>
Excellent. Finally learning from the experts. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of slashdotters are decrying this as a bad thing.
You're all wrong.
This is the *right* way to do airport security. Finally!
Take a look at the country that has the biggest terrorist problem anywhere -- Israel -- and take a look at their airport security record. The reason it's so good is simple; Israel doesn't focus on keeping bad *things* off of planes, they focus on keeping bad *people* off of planes.
It doesn't matter how many penknives and bottles of water you confiscate, a determined terrorist can easily get something usable as a weapon on the airplane. It wouldn't be that difficult to get guns on the plane, actually. To prevent terrorist attacks in the skies, you need to keep the terrorists off the planes, not their shoes.
Israeli airport screeners do search your stuff. Very thoroughly, in fact. But the one looking through your stuff is really just trying to make you nervous. The other one is watching your face, posture and movements, looking for responses that are wrong. He's also firing questions at you almost faster than you can answer them, sometimes asking the question multiple ways to look for evasions. Finally, he's noting key points of your answers which he's going to threaten to check -- and may actually check if the rest of it gives him any concern. "Where did you go?", "Who did you meet with?", "Do you have his business card?", etc. The answers to the questions are important, but even more important is their effect, which is to rattle you.
I'm not trying to say that US airports should adopt the same approach. For one thing, it's too slow and way too costly to have two highly-trained officers interrogate each and every traveler for 5+ minutes. But the basic concept can be applied here: apply enough scrutiny and pressure to make people nervous, then watch their reactions. Focus more attention on those whose reactions are wrong. Who defines what "wrong" means? Experience.
Oh, and then let people take a coke or a penknife on the airplane.
Personally, I think we ought to back off on the whole thing. We don't have the same sort of problem with terrorism that Israel does, and aren't going to, as long as we get someone more rational to replace Bush. Sure we had 9/11 -- a fleabite in the grand scheme of things, killing less people than die on the highways each month and doing less property damage than a good-sized hurricane. Simple refusal to be terrorized, acceptance that bad things sometimes happen, is the best approach IMO. That and, in the case of aircraft, aggressive passenger response to any attempted hijacking -- oh, and keeping passengers out of the cockpit is a cheap, easy and effective change.
If we're going to try to stop terrorism at the TSA security checkpoint, though, *this* is the right way to do it. Requiring passengers to carry their toothpaste and aftershave in a one-quart baggie is pointless security theatre.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Insightful)
No kidding, this is about the sanest thing that's been done in the name of security in a long time, but people are so primed to hate any kind of security they're knee-jerking against this one too.
Guess what, people? The more smart security we have, the less dumb security we'll need.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's exactly the opposite: there are protests, large ones, every day in America. The problem is that they're all pre-approved by police and don't really affect any change. Nearly every protest/demonstration I've gone to (and yes, like many protestors, I went to a bunch when I was a sparkly-minded undergrad) takes the atmosphere of a party or some other social event. You'll see kids banging on drums, playing music, dancing, or whatever.
It would take something pretty extraordinary to elevate a protest to the 'angry mob' you're referring to, given how sanctioned demonstrations are these days.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, you are mistaken... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Million Man March was held on the Mall in DC in 1995, with somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people.
This garnered a lot of attention and the "Million * March" naming scheme was borrowed by a number of later groups, such as the:
- Million Mom March, May 2000, about 150,000 - 200,000 women advocating for gun control laws
- Million Worker March, 2004, about 10,000 people protesting globalization and free-trade treaties
- Million Family March, 2000, tens-of-thousands of people
Furthermore, there have been an enormous amount of anti-war protests against the war in Iraq, starting in 2002 and continuing to today
There was also a lot of coverage for the 1999 Anti-WTO protests in Seattle, WA that brought out an estimated 50,000-100,000 people.
And, of course, there were so many protesters when Bush was inaugurated into Office in 2000 that he was the first President in over a hundred years that couldn't walk from the capitol to the White House after being sworn-in. He had to be taken there in an armored car.
And you'd be surprised about the proximity to the White House. Nearly all marches/protests are held on the Mall in DC, which is a huge expanse that runs between the US Capitol on one end and the Washington Monument on the other end, with the White House right in between. It's set back a couple hundred yards from the mall, but the protests where abutted right against the White House gate.
You know.. I'm so sick of arrogant Europeans talking trash about how ignorant Americans are, when so many show that same ignorance about Americans themselves. I mean, no offense, in a country like America, with 300,000,000 people and, as the only remaining "Super Power", LOTS of things to protest, to assume that we've had no "major" protests in 30 years just shows an alarming bias/ignorance of our culture.
Re:And voting for "tax-and-spend" Dems helps? (Score:3, Insightful)
How fucking stupid is that?
Really.
You've got to be utterly unable to add two and two if you think TSA is bad but yet that same government would do a great job providing you medical care."
I hear ya. I've seen first hand how [sarcasm]productive and efficient[/sarcasm] the govt. and govt programs are. I've had to live through what FEMA did for the NOLA area. I've worked with the Feds on computer projects, etc...and let me tell you, they have NEVER done anything without horrible red tape, politicals making decisions over professionals, and within decent costs. We do need the govt. for certain things...Constitutional type things. Defense...good, infrastructure....good. But, really them being in charge of some things is quite scary. We do need some medical reform in this country. I'd think regulating the insurance, the lawyers, and the HMOs and other for profit leeches that make the system so $$$, and takes the actual Dr's out of the decision loops would be a major start. Also, make it where the insurance co's can't cherry pick only the best people to cover. There is a large sector out there that can easily pay for their coverage IF some one would offer them coverage...at any cost.
But, you think medicine is bad now...wait till the US govt is in charge. We'll sink under the $$$ and bureacracy that will engender. I mean, this IS the same govt. that listened to big drug companies, and refused to let the govt. bargain with drug co's for best pricing.....at least they got it right when they let the VA system do this years back. But, please...with the US govt. already so bought and paid for, do you really think a fair, efficient, flexible (everyone's health needs are different) will magically come about when the US Fed. government takes over?
Like the parent said....look how well they've done TSA (and other programs, isn't US education wonderful these days?).
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Insightful)
Have I really submitted to that when I bought a ticket? Hmm...I don't remember reading anything like that on the website when I bought my ticket. I never saw it on my ticket/boarding pass. I never signed anything of the like saying I read and understand that I gave up my rights when I bought a ticket to fly somewhere. I never had to do that in the past...years back before I had to show any form of ID in an airport, before when your family could go with you to the gate to see you off, or be waiting there when you got OFF the plane. No, I'm not sure when this implicit 'agreement' was established.
Oh, that's right...there is apparently some unpublished laws supporting what the TSA says, but, since we cannot see them....how do we know what they say?
I'm still shocked there isn't much of an uproar over that one...secret US laws that US citizens can't look at?
Oh well, I guess I'm the only one that just doesn't live out my days worrying about a terrorist strike. I'm afraid I'll lose more of my rights LONG before that happens. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a bit more security than in the 'old' days of about 20 years ago....but, really, I don't accept that I've given up my rights to person, property and privacy...and freedom to travel when I buy and airline ticket these days.
Re:And voting for "tax-and-spend" Dems helps? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess we should all take care of our own roads, buy a fire truck to park in each driveway, take turns policing the streets, pay a local company to do medical research on diseases we don't have (and hardly anyone has), etc.
I have no idea whether government managed health care is a good idea. But politicizing the issue doesn't help us learn anything. If you must bring politics into it, I'll just note that the "tax-and-spend" Republicans haven't done much better at managing the country - the just spend the money on different things.
misidentification fear (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people are extremely afraid of misidentification. Can the screeners distinguish between terrorists who are afraid of being caught and lawful citizens who are afraid of being killed on the spot by overzealous counterterrorism agents who misread a facial expression or two?
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest irony of all is that we have gone down the path that 'The Terrorists', whomever falls under that category, would have wanted. Killing a few thousand people, albeit very tragic, is nothing compared to turning a government against it's own citizens and keeping an entire populous in constant fear. Which they could never have accomplished without the aid of said government.
Re:Yes, you are mistaken... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I named 6 large protests. Not "4 or 5."
Second, I alluded to NEAR CONSTANT PROTEST of the Iraq War since 2002. Millions of people have been involved in these.
Third, It's a bit pedantic of you to assume that I, a mere mortal, was able to name EVERY LARGE PROTEST in our VAST nation over the last 30 years, isn't it? Especially considering I'm 25....
Fourth, what makes you think they didn't accomplish anything?
Fifth, I've heard your former Prime Minister Blair call the US the "last remaining super power" more than once. I'm not bragging, i'm just stating the facts. The measure of a "Super Power" is not how many nukes does one have. That's the measure of a "Nuclear Power."
And finally, most Americans haven't protested fuel prices because it's an inconvenience, not an atrocity. Most of us just drive less, drive slower, and drive more efficient vehicles.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, this is old news. This was being mentioned in 2004 during the time of the CAPPS II and TIA stuff.
Re:100% fool proof plan to defeat terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
lol. but you are absolutely right. it never was about terrorism, but about control. see, those in control have managed to implement a system where NO PROOF(patent pending) is required for detaining any person. watch for the next step, taking it outside the airports. give police the authority to detain and interogate a man sitting and watching the children at a park because he 'looks' suspiciously like a pevert (i hope they remember to take along the guy's kid).
Re:Well spent money and efforts? (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of people criticizing the low "catch" rate of the profilers... But what's the normal "catch" rate? I mean they still do inspections, interviews and full body cavity searches even without "facial profiling". Are they harassing more or less people? Are they catching proportionally more or less people from those they harass?
The questions are probably the most important ones when addressing the effectiveness of the program. Because if they catch 700 people out of 70,000 that seems pretty bad, unless of course they normally catch 200 out of 100,000. And it might seem pretty good to some people, unless of course, the reverse is true and the normal rate is 200 out of 10,000 people. Yay, for failure of the reporter(s) to get the relevant facts once again!
Re:Excellent. Finally learning from the experts. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently you DO become your enemies. Or, at least, the Stasi used the same techniques, and they presumably got it from the Gestapo.
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyways enough of the stupid talk,
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.
And this evil doesn't stem from some crazy ass muslims here and there who just happen to like offing people, just because there are crazy bastards or something.
No, these problems all arise because people, Muslims, Jews and Christians (and throw in some Hindus for good measure) alike are falling victim to injustice, thus making them susceptible to the warmongering of only a handfull of so called 'leaders'.
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). You end up with a bunch of Palestinians having nothing anymore, living in the stone age and no discernible way out. In a situation like that it only takes one nut to step up and say 'it's them Jews ho did this to us, lets go out and kill a few...'
Palestinians kill some Jews, Jews blow Lebanon to pieces with some clusterboms and padabing padaboom, you have a full scale war on your hands.
Whose fault is this? Nobodies, except maybe the allies (I explicitly don't blame the US all on it's own) from WWOII who decided to try and create Israel in the way they did. This should have been done using more diplomatic ways I think, even if that would have taken 50 years. Hell, I'm no geopolitical expert, but even a child can see what went wrong.
Same deal with Afghanistan. Russians needed to go so Mujahedein got funded. Once the Russians were gone there was nobody to support the merging nation of Afghanistan. They ended up piss poor and frustrated, a feeding ground for extremists.
Saddam and the whole Iran vs. Irak story... same thing.
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 (They were pawns in the cold war between USSR and USA) and because some Chateau-Neuf-Du-Pape drinking bastard tells them it is our fault and if we go away they wil magically become un-poor.
The problems mentioned here are global problems, caused by the whole world just looking on instead of taking reasonable action. They are not just the USA's fault but the USA is a big player on a global scale, economically, morally and military... They should behave accordingly and not let a bunch of extremists in their own country take over.
It's not 'them vs. us', it's not 'Christians vs. Muslims', it's about people having the right to live freely and not taking everything from them, making them blind with rage so they cannot think straight and do all kinds of stupid crap to eachother.
The US and Europe should do something about THAT instead of herassing me at the airport because I happen to look funny (and I do sometimes, really
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:5, Insightful)
A question: can these mindreaders detect the difference between "I'm scared of being found out about something illegal" vs "I'm surly and evasive because I don't feel I should have to impress secret police with my joviality"?
The article says that 70,000 people were referred for further screening, of which 700 were booked for some offense like drug possession, weapons charges, or outstanding warrants. So by those numbers, 99% of the people hassled by the program were innocent.
So this super duper collection of fear-detection techniques is (a) inconveniencing the sh*t out of a ton of innocents, and (b) producing results that a blind monkey could produce just as well through sheer statistical accident.
Color me impressed. Don't beat me, I'll smile! Go Amerikka!
Re:Look in the mirror. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well spent money and efforts? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, to clarify for others who also may be confused:
"Common cause" basically means "due to essentially random conditions" - things like traffic accidents are, on a population-sized basis, random. That is, for a large population, accidents happen at some statistical rate due to the more or less random distribution of weather, driver ability, distractions, etc. There is a fundamental minimum number of such common-cause incidents; this is why, while the auto accident rate has been falling, that rate has slowed and we still have thousands of deaths a year. This is like random metal impurities in mechanical components that cause some of them to break before other ones, and some parts to last "forever". (Now, I agree that you're not likely to die in a car accident if you never ride in a car. However, I'd argue that far less than 100% of the US population is at risk for terrorist attacks - there is no real benefit to terrorists to attack very remote areas because there isn't a high enough concentration of people to terrorize).
Terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc. are "special cause" because they are *not* random - there is no statistical distribution of these, and they happen because of some specific, unique set of circumstances. This is like mixing the wrong alloy for components which cause a whole bunch of them to break at once.
Re:Yes, you are mistaken... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:3, Insightful)
thoughtcrime (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, I am quasi-"middle-eastern" looking (half Indian), have contempt (and possibly surprise and anger) for government agents bothering me with nosy questions, and fear of being secretly whisked away and imprisoned in a legal limbo. So I guess that makes me an immediate suspect. If they asked me where I was going, I would probably say "home". Vague and elusive? Hells yeah.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy. Wait until a crime is committed, then look for clues to ID the perpetrator (who may be dead in some cases.) That's the security policy espoused by most Slashdotters. Interestingly, very few of them are actually responsible for physical security.
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not a promissing track record (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh Noes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, the available evidence says that you're wrong. The Muslim counterpart of a family guy with a nice house, car, wife, kids, some money in the bank is more likely to be a terrorist. Osama bin Laden was a wealthy guy worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Sept 11 hijackers were middle class. The most recent bombings in the UK were committed by Muslims who were licensed medical doctors. The UK transit bombers were middle class or wealthy Muslims.
Give it fancy names all that you like. The Ottomans ruled the place, they were Muslims. Muslims lived there since the time of the crusades and even before.
True. And how did the Muslims get there? They came and conquered. Incidentally, Jews have lived there for centuries before the Muslims.
And even IF everything went ok and according to the law and what not (which I doubt -> by what right did the British ever think they were allowed to decide what happenend with Jordan and Israel? Can you explain that to me??)
Here is your explanation:
The British ended up with the Mandate territory after the collapse of the Ottomans. You may recall that the British (and many, many other nations, including Belgium) had colonies all over the globe. Later on, there was a movement away from colonies ruled by the mother country towards self-government.
With the approval of the League of Nations, the British took the majority of the Mandate territory and created a new Arab state (now called Jordan).
After World War II, self-determination of the remainder of the British Mandate territory was left to the United Nations. After investigating and consulting with all parties, the United Nations came to the conclusion Jews and Arabs have both have legitimate claims to the area, and that the only way to resolve the incompatible competing claims was to create two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with international status for Jerusalem. This was acceptable to the Jews, but not acceptable to the Arabs. The Arabs declared war shortly after.
why then does Israel, to this day continue to build more settlements??? Don't they have enough already??? What are they achieving besides causing even more trouble for everybody? As long as Israel _as well as_ Palestine keep provoking eachother it will remain a feeding ground for extremists on both sides.
It is not settlements that provoke the Arabs, it is the fact that Israel exists. The Arabs wars began long before there were any settlements.
Settlements are a non-issue. When Egypt started the 1967 war with Israel and lost the Sinai, there were Israeli settlements there. More than 10 years later, when peace was signed between Egypt and Israel, the Israelis packed up and left, forcibly removing Israelis who wanted to stay.
When Israel decided to leave Gaza, they forcibly removed Israelis who wanted to stay.
If the Palestinians ever sign a peace treaty, I bet Israel will forcibly remove any Israelis who want to stay.
How can you justify blowing a whole country to bits because of a few hundred militant people?
Israel didn't blow the whole country to bits, and Hezbullah is far bigger than a few hundred.
But to your main point: Israeli responded to an act of war committed with the
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:3, Insightful)
Which means the program is either a 100% failure, or catching terrorists is not the intended goal - unconstitutional searches are.