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.""
Oh Noes (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh Noes (Score:4, Insightful)
Anny connection to this? (Score:3, Informative)
"behavior-detection officers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Could you speak up? (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides. I feel safe.
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
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Re:Could you speak up? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Could you speak up? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:4, Interesting)
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].
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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.
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.
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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: (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)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which means the program is either a 100% failure, or catching terrorists is not the intended goal - unconstitutional searches are.
Re:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:4, Informative)
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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)
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.
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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:Yes, you are mistaken... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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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
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:"behavior-detection officers" (Score:4, Interesting)
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: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, 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
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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 comp
Re:And voting for "tax-and-spend" Dems helps? (Score:4, Interesting)
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!"
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.
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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 i
Note to terrorist self (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Note to terrorist self (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't funny (Score:3, Insightful)
First it's facial expressions, next it will be the thought police.
check id before get on plane (Score:2, Insightful)
You - you and YOU! (Score:2)
I bet hes a criminal.
Man, thats ONE scary looking bastard, and look at THAT...He has a mustage
No
Predicted long ago (Score:5, Interesting)
-- 1984 by George Orwell
Re:Predicted long ago (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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It's the assignment of unregulated power to non-elected government officials, based purely and entirely on the jud
New Buzz-Phrase For 2008 (Score:5, Funny)
"Don't FACE me, bro!"
Racial Profiling (Score:5, Interesting)
"How are you today?"
"Where are you heading?"
"Is this all your property?"
"It's almost irrelevant what your answers are..."
This holiday, every person that I saw pulled out for secondary screening was an elderly black woman with a bunch of little kids.
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, hen
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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
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.
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"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.
False positive much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:False positive much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trouble with the police (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
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
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.
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.
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 th
Yeah, Right (Score:5, Funny)
Ed Almos
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:Behavioural profiling (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really?
In London you do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes [wikipedia.org]
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?
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?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're looking at it the wrong way. Somebody somewhere is making money from this.
Airport Security (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Airport Security (Score:4, Interesting)
About time they look at my face (Score:3, 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!!!
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 te
Re: (Score:3, 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.
After thinking about this a bit one thing stood out to me:
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 ca
Re: (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 slow
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?
Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Easy (Score:5, Funny)
This is the TSA. Those tits aren't very good. Even the TSA men have better tits.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The best way to avoid a thorough pat-down is to show them that you actually enjoy it. For some reason, the TSA screeners are really uncomfortable around gay passengers...
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?
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.
Where have I heard this before? (Score:3, Funny)
"You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling towards you. You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping."
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: (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 Gestap
Note to self (Score:3, Funny)
Underlying principle is well-known (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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?
TSA Training (Score:5, Interesting)
Cultural differences (Score:3, Interesting)
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,
This is going to be fun to watch, unless you are the suspect that is
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.
they will see murderous rage in my eyes (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Care to cite that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Care to cite that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They'll never suspect a thing until it's too late. BWAHAHAHA!