Airport Profilers Learn to Read Facial Expressions

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.""

you think that is all?

[spectrokid]

Did yo know they even track what kind of bagage you check in and what clothes you wear and match it to your trip data? A suit going for 2 days to NY with minimal bagage= ok. Same suit going to Hawai for 2 days with minimal bagage = trouble...

Predicted long ago

[timon]

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called."

-- 1984 by George Orwell

Racial Profiling

[Telephone Sanitizer]

The officers ask simple questions:

"How are you today?"

"Where are you heading?"

"Is this all your property?"

"It's almost irrelevant what your answers are..."

That's because I'm not a black grandma carting a bunch of grandkids around.

This holiday, every person that I saw pulled out for secondary screening was an elderly black woman with a bunch of little kids.

"We're looking for behavior indicators that show a certain level of stress, fear or anxiety above and beyond that shown by an anxious member of the traveling public."

Wow! What a fantastically detailed legal threshold for a full body search!

The TSA considers the program a powerful tool to root out terrorists, but also an antidote to racial profiling.

..."Not!"

Trouble with the police

[wrook]

Like every good /.er I didn't RTFA. But this reminds me of something that happened to me recently.

I was walking down the street late at night with a friend of mine. All of a sudden he yells out, "Crap!" and starts getting all agitated.

"What are you doing", I asked.

"Don't look! It's the police", he replied. "I always have trouble with them. Every time I see them they follow me and then I end up getting into a hassle."

I looked at him. Then I looked at the police. Then I waved at the police and they drove off.

"How did you do that??", he asked incredulously.

It never occurred to him that his nervousness was the only thing that way attracting the police's attention. For some reason he thought they had it in for him or something.

I suspect that there will be a lot more people being detained if nervousness is a reason to detain someone. There are just people who are nervous around authority figures. And since that nervousness usually gets them into trouble, they become even more nervous. Welcome to longer lineups at the airport...

Scary?

[taskiss]

I WANT the airport security looking for people acting odd. There's only so many ways someone can put themselves into a position where they can injure or kill the other passengers on a plane and having security folks check for people acting odd seems to be an obvious procedure to follow. Someone acting nervous needs to get greater scrutiny. Profile all you want 'cause I'm thinking a blue haired Grandma ain't the best candidate for security to detain and search.

Then again, I don't insist on wearing tinfoil hats. I WANT bad guys doing bad things caught. I guess I'm in the minority here on /.

Airport Security

[Aladrin]

I was in the airport this last weekend to pick someone up. As I sat and waited, I heard the 'if you see anything or anyone suspicious, dial 911' announcement a few dozen times.

I hate airports to start with, and the added security and craziness makes me hate them more. So now, on top of that, my nervousness might be seen as terrorist attitude and I've got 1 -more- thing to worry about. Great!

I heard a rumor a while back... The rumor said that we have -never- found even a single terrorist with the security we have at the airports. Not one. Since then, I have never seen a news report that says we found a terrorist at an airport. There are reports of spoiled plots, but they never involve the airport itself... They are always stopped by law enforcement.

Has anyone got a news report they can cite to show we -have- found terrorists this way? Or are the airport security concerns just harrassing law-abiding citizens?

Re:Predicted long ago

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth it to note that the oppressed/watched people for the most part in 1984 were the bourgeois, or the upper and middle class, who were part of the Party. You'll notice that the proles were left pretty much alone to do what they wanted.

Also, I for one am not weary, or tired, of my rights at all. I'm weary of them being eroded, and I'm wary, or watchful, of anyone who says otherwise.

Re:"behavior-detection officers"

[somersault]

That was France though, where people actually protest rather than sitting there polishing their shiny, shiny guns.

1 in 100, how to measure success

[tommeke100]

so, the article says 70,000 ppl got screened due to being suspicious, of which 700 ppl had drugs or something else on them (or where criminals, ...).
That means, out of 100 ppl they pinpoint with their special training, only 1% really is guilty of something, meaning they harassed 99% of the rest.

I think they should compare their results with just checking 100 ppl at random. Because a 1% success rate in my opinion in pretty weak.

Re:"behavior-detection officers"

[ubernostrum]

Oddly enough, we aren't the first country to do this, and those who have aren't totalitarian regimes. And as strange as it sounds, when done properly (admittedly, not likely given the "lowest pay and least training wins the contract" system used for American airport security) behavioral profiling is actually an effective security measure; even Bruce Schneier, a Slashdot favorite for debunking silly security theater, is in favor of behavioral profiling when done correctly [schneier.com].

Re:It's the MUSLIMS, stupid.

[Sesticulus]

Did you forget Timothy James McVeigh? It was the second largest terrorist attack on US soil. He was not a Muslim.

Re:Airport Security

[aeschenkarnos]

That's because the terrorists were done messing with airports as of September 12, 2001. Once a battle is won, why keep fighting it?

Not a horrible idea.

[doctor_nation]

So, no positive replies to this at all? When it's trying to do the same thing that has been most successful in other countries? It's a much better idea than relying on random searches and X-ray machines. The machines are easy to confuse and to avoid a random search all you have to do is look white and Christian. At least this way there is some hope that you can detect anyone that is a possible threat. That said, I'm sure the underpaid screeners will do a crappy job. If you're working airport security in the US, you're probably not very bright. And I'm not one of the people who is terribly afraid of a terrorist attack (especially on an airplane) either. But if they're going to pull some percentage of travelers out of line for secondary screening, it would be nice if they had a reason other than skin color or religious dress. I've certainly never seen someone in full Muslim attire make it through security without being pulled aside.

Re:"behavior-detection officers"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and the USA spent the next two years trying to decide which side to support.

Re:Trouble with the police

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of an incident when I was in University many years ago. I was in the town centre staring into a shop window when I saw a friend out of the corner of my eye. I think he was standing there waiting for me to notice him. So, as students will, I kept on staring into the window but said

"The sparrows are flying early this year"

quick as a flash the friend replied:

"But none are flying south"

With a cackling laugh I then turned round to shake his hand only to see a policeman staring at the both of us. He didnt say anything, but then it was a student town and we pretty much looked the part. Today, who knows whether we'd get away with it.

Re:I wonder if this is evidence-based at all?

[gedeco]

They have a lot of policians to verify this technique.

It's a natural evolution for former terrorists to become a politician.
Perhaps someone will define some terrorists as a freedom fighter, but in the end they become all politicians. Look to Tito, Yasser Arafat, Ho Chi Min, Franco and many many others...
These are the terrorists who succeeded

Re:But the target isn't the 'Interpol top 100'

[murderlegendre]

If you're the sort of person so convinced in the reality and greatness of Allah that you'll willingly go to your own death, does that not imply something in the way of confidence in what you're doing?

I know it's all Allah-be-praised on the propaganda side, but a frequent motivation for many suicide bombers (at least on the ground) is actually money. Umbrella organizations like Al Quaeda, Hammas and the like frequently offer a sizable payout to your next-of-kin for services rendered in the name of the jihad. So, you get the virgins, your mom and dad get lifted out of eternal poverty and god's will is done. Everybody wins!

But your comment is certainly not lacking in insight.. though I might suggest that since the almighty has consistently failed to rout the infidels from his lands, he might not be completely trusted with your safe passage through the TSA screening. Flashes of uncertainty and doubt may well run through the mind of the pre-martyr, and it's the facial evidence of these brief lapses which are the subject of interest.

Re:"behavior-detection officers"

[pjt33]

The US actively joined the war in 1941, but that doesn't mean that from a US perspective it hadn't already started in 1939. The question is really when the set of conflicts became a "World War", and from that point of view 1939, when most of the large colonial powers became involved, is probably the best answer.

Re:"behavior-detection officers"

[Panaqqa]

I agree with the parent post. El Al, the Israeli airline, has been using this as part of their security arsenal for almost as long as they've been around. Made some excellent collars also, some of terrorists, occasionally a terrorist that was planning on blowing up the flight they were trying to board.

My only concern with this is who is doing the behavioural profiling. A highly experienced security person that has undergone a comprehensive training program for behavioural profiling will be very effective. A typical US airport $10/hour "rent-a-cop" that sat through a boring badly designed half hour seminar with 200 others will be worse than useless.

Underlying principle is well-known

[Bearhouse]

Neil Rackham, best-known for formalising the 'SPIN' sales technique, used many sources to identify high performers in person to person situations. One example I remember from his highly-readable book, is where he observed customs officers.

Those who were better at spotting offenders commonly said it was 'instinct'. When observing those people at work, Rackham noticed that they in fact picked up verbal and non-verbal clues, (avoiding eye contact...), that could then be codified and tranferred to others via training.

TSA Training

[Ixtl]

To my shame and discredit, I was a TSA Security Officer for about four years (Somebody had to pay the bills while my wife went through med school). If this new program follows any of their other training procedures, it's essentially worthless. They introduced a position for a specially trained "Bomb Appraisal Officer" whom you call in when you see a potential explosive device on the x-ray screen or in a bag search, and this officer's job is to decide whether to call the Bomb Squad. The intense training regimen for this position was two thirty-minute CD-ROMs sent from headquarters. How that is supposed to turn an average screener into an explosives expert, I couldn't say. Aside from a handful of improvements, mostly in terms of physical security (locks, fences around airfields, reinforced cockpit doors) TSA is just window dressing--an elaborate and expensive sleight-of-hand to make the public think that their government is "doing something" about terrorism. But I was obscenely overpaid to do a very simple job for a few years, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Re:Yes, you are mistaken...

[R2.0]

"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."

You miss the point. In Europe, a "major protest" means
- shutting down a country's whole train system
- Shutting down a country's highway systems by blocking the roads with trucks or farm implements
- Shutting down a country's flagship university
- Rioting and arson all over amajor city.

The first 2 don't happen here because the country is just so damned large, no one can get a "nationwide" anything done. The third happens infrequently, on smaller campuses, but not over national issues - Gallaudet students shut down teh school for a few days because the proposed president wasn't deaf enough (really). As for the fourth, they happen - they are called riots and dealt with by police as criminal acts, not protests.

While Europeans talk about international issues a lot, their outlooks tend to be very provincial when looking at the US - they don't understand the size of the country ( I had relatives visit PA once who wanted to visit Texas because they thought it was a day trip), nor the political system, nor the people. In many ways, we are still the trash that they were glad to see leave in the great immigrant waves of the previous centuries - low class and low brow. Now that they are moving closer to political union with looser borders, they are getting a taste of our world - regional interests vying on a larger stage, immigration, and underclass of a different color, and an unaccountable leadership.

My ancestors left Europe for a reason; as far as I'm concerned, not a lot has changed except the lack of warfare for 50 years - an historical fluke which someone will remedy soon enough. I'm guessing Germany or France - you just don't shake Hitler or Napoleon out of the collective consciousness with the wave of a hat.

Re:Note to terrorist self

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks - that is EXACTLY how I feel too. I am a big, tall black guy, but extremely intelligent (I like to think so, anyway) and I work as a cardiothoracic (heart) surgeon.

Every time I go through these damn places (to Canada, mostly, which is the biggest offender IMHO), I seem to always get stopped. One particular time the Canadian customs person asked what I did, and I told her that I was a cardiac surgeon, and she *rolled her eyes* and pulled me to the secondary screening line.

I was livid, and obviously distraught by the time I got to the line, and just started verbally abusing the guards for their obvious incompetence, unprofessionalism, and perceived racial profiling. Their response was "USA is much worse with that stuff," further fanning my fury...

I had to tone it down a bit to keep from getting arrested, and I felt a bit bad halfway through because the guard searching my bag was different from the lady who rolled her eyes, and I could tell they were getting pretty shaken up from having this guy, rightly so, chew them out. Obviously they didn't find any contraband, let me into Canada. I wrote a complaint and description of the incident on hospital letterhead, and never heard back from the Canadian Customs authority.

Simply put, a snap judgemnt has close to NO sensitivity or specificity for this, and SHOULD NOT BE USED. A much better way to tell if I was lying is to ask, "From what vessel does the LIMA originate?" which probably only a cardiac surgeon would answer right away. This is what they do in Israel airline passenger screening for the majority of careers that a person could answer -- they also do this with geography (where you claim you are from) and things like this. This can detect lying -- somebody's transient "facial expressions" will not.

Cultural differences

[kbahey]

This is amazing.

Does anyone know how culture factors in here?

Things that are expected to be "nice" in US culture is rude in others. Examples are looking someone in the eye. In the US, it is expected, while it is insolent in many other cultures. Not looking someone in the eye can mean disrespect, evasion, sneakiness, ...etc.

This is going to be fun to watch, unless you are the suspect that is ...

Re:"behavior-detection officers"

[nschubach]

I think it has more to do with the opinions of the owner of the media. They wield some awful power by censoring what they don't want people to see and showing them what they think will sway popular opinion in their favor. There are some local radio stations that refuse to play music (Lacuna Coil - Heaven's a Lie) that they said was anti-religious, but Flyleaf (an all Christian rock band with multiple songs about faith ["All Around Me", "I'm So Sick"]) is played on a daily (almost hourly) basis. I'm surprised the movie "The Compass" actually made it to the theaters. The religious groups were all over that like flypaper because of the ideology/theology of the original book's author.

Re:"behavior-detection officers"

[The_Wilschon]

Hey there geezer. Last time I checked, it was my parents' generation, the Baby Boomers, who were driving this entire national security/loss of freedoms deal. My generation is well aware of it, and hates it.

Re:What is a terrorist facial expression?

[fishbowl]

>What happens when I display a fear microexpression when I'm asked if I have any bomb?

Well, I can tell you, when they ask you if you know how to *make* a bomb, and you say "I am a physics professor. I'm sure I know how to make a bomb," the searching and questioning intensifies. So you have to either lie to the police, or deal with the consequences of honest answers.

Yeah, But What If A Passenger

[aquatone282]

. . . is wearing a burqa [wikipedia.org] or niqab [wikipedia.org]?

Seriously - how is that handled? Are they taken to a private room with a female TSA employee and made to remove it?

I hope so. . . Because I'm not getting on a plane with anyone who doesn't have to submit to the same level of scrutiny as the rest of us, regardless of their religious beliefs.

Re:And voting for "tax-and-spend" Dems helps?

[illumin8]

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.

Thank you for spouting the same "we don't want the people that run the DMV to run our healthcare" FUD that you hear on Fox News 24/7.

The plain and simple fact of the matter is that all of the proposed mandatory health insurance plans are just that: mandatory health insurance. The government is in no way going to "take over" healthcare and start running hospitals and put all doctors on government payroll. It is ridiculous to think we would just throw out our entire healthcare industry, as it is one of the biggest parts of our US economy.

What the government would do under some of the proposed plans is make health insurance mandatory. That means that every American will be insured. If they can't afford to pay the premiums, they get government help to pay (your tax dollars at work), but if they're working their premium is usually paid partially by their employer and partially by themselves.

The healthcare system stays the same. You can still pick your doctor, pick your hospital. The coverage is mandatory.

Quit spouting the republican FUD about the government taking over all healthcare. It will never happen. The republicans are trying to sell this image of countries like the UK who actually run their own hospitals and hire doctors. This is pretty inefficient, as we've already proven that capitalism works for things like this.

Most reasonable Americans would agree that everyone should have health insurance. The current system for poor people, which is basically, you wait until you're really sick, almost dead, then go to the emergency room for unscheduled, extremely expensive ($$$) healthcare, which you'll never be able to pay the bill for, doesn't work. What does work and is much less costly ($) is to have everyone insured, so that the poor people have the option of going to a regular doctor who might be able to find and resolve health issues early, before they become major emergency room operations that we all have to pay for indirectly (unpaid emergency room bills increase hospital costs, which increases the rate of all healthcare).

But far be it from the Republican and right-wing controlled media to tell you what the healthcare plans are really about. It sounds much more scary and gets more viewers to show some dingy DMV office with lines out the doors and say "POLITICIAN A WANTS TO TURN YOUR HOSPITALS INTO THIS! STORY AT 11!"

they will see murderous rage in my eyes

[0111 1110]

[blockquote]For example, in some cultures people don't make eye contact with people in authority.[/blockquote]

I seldom make eye contact with TSA officers, police or other such 'people in authority'. Which is quite sensible since they would quickly see my ever so strong desire to cut them up into little pieces and feed them to sharks. I fucking hate these overgrown-schoolyard-bully morons. I do not exaggerate when I say that I would so happily kill any one of them without even a moments hesitation if the chance arose to do it without dying or going to prison. And all of my fellow Americans who want to keep this country headed right into the oh so super secure abyss of totalitarianism. F U. And please die. I look at these modern day SS officers with the hate and disgust that they so richly deserve. Seriously folks it's getting to the point where our government needs to go down. Hard.