TSA “Behavioral Detection Officers” Looking for Face Criminals in U.S. Airports
January 3rd, 2008Via: Seattle Post Intelligencer:
If a pair of Transportation Security Administration officers strolling by a Sea-Tac Airport ticket counter wish you happy holidays and ask where you’re traveling, it might be more than just Christmas spirit.
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.
TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program — called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) — that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent.
But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions — a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA.
“In the SPOT program, we have a conversation with (passengers) and we ask them about their trip,” said Maccario from his office in Boston. “When someone lies or tries to be deceptive, … there are behavior cues that show it. … A brief flash of fear.”
Such people are referred for secondary screening, which can include a pat-down search and an X-ray exam. The microfacial expressions, he said, are the same across many cultures.
They’d certainly bag me on CONTEMPT.
I remember hearing that you could fool a lie detector not by hiding your reactions to the important questions, but by reacting to *every* question as if it were dangerous, (Is today Thursday?!? Oh my god, they’re going to waterboard me!! Fight or Flight!!!) thus denying the machine a baseline for comparison…
So how’s this for something to try:
Whenever you’re out in a crowded, public, scrutinizable place, get your face busy – keep a repertoire of tiny expressions constantly cycling across your face. Tics, twitches, micro-smirks, mini-grimaces…
Sure, you’ll look like a random wandering crazyperson til you get the hang of it, but at least there’s a chance that you’ll be messing up Their data!
There actually was such a thing as facecrime in George Orwell’s novel 1984.
Loveandlight is in the running for Cryptogon’s Captain Obvious Award — 2008.
😉
My hero, Captain Obvious!
Funny thing, though. In this day and age, to be a Master of the Obvious is to play the heretic role; the “crazy person” who points at invisible elephants. Who wonders aloud about the OTHER applications of the new technology. Who knows from historical precedent that the latest batteries and thin-film solar cells are being developed for military applications first and commercial applications second — not the other way ’round.
So, all of we masters of the obvious should bow deeply toward the newest member of Team Obvious and welcome them to the barbeque. Wing or leg?
As I waited for the previous comment to upload to the server-end, the “P-I” byline (Seattlite shorthand for the Post-Intelligencer) jumped out at me, being a born & bred native of the area.
Made me think about the possibility of flying back home to the Pacific Northwest, and how I’m not planning to go back, and how folks back in the states still don’t take this position of mine seriously. Yet.
Made me think about my first encounter with the TSA drones, and whether or not I would be allowed to walk unmolested through the terminal at Sea-Tac wearing a mask. Any mask, really. Perhaps something appropriate, like Nixon or Reagan. How far would I get before being asked to “come this way, please” by taser-wielding rent-a-cops high on authority and jacked up on No-Doz near the end of a long and particularly frustrating shift.
Then I show up sporting a Tricky Dick visage. Can you imagine what would happen next? I can.
@ erth2karin
Or you could just go to the airport in similar dress as this family 😉
http://flickr.com/photos/trvth/363168126/
It is absurd, this security theater, isn’t it?
I’m with Cloud — my contempt normally would be so freakin’ obvious vis-a-vis these TSA goons, but unfortunately I must still travel to the US for several more years. The pook is a master thespian. You wouldn’t believe the perkily Pollyanna answers I’ve given to these snoopy little shits. They’ve all been men so far, so I just act as if I’m having a Grand Day and I think they’re cute. My Murray Rothbard “Enemy of the State” t-shirts are packed in my suitcase, however.