Airport profilers: They're watching your expressions

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | December 25, 2007 | By PAUL SHUKOVSKY

[SubGeniusX]

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.

Since January 2006, behavior-detection officers have referred about 70,000 people for secondary screening, Maccario said. Of those, about 600 to 700 were arrested on a variety of charges, including possession of drugs, weapons violations and outstanding warrants.

Maccario will not say whether the teams have disrupted any terrorist operations. But he did say that there are active counterterrorism investigations under way that began with referrals from the program.

SPOT began spreading out to airports across the nation two years after initial testing began in 2003 in Boston, Providence, R.I., and Portland, Maine. It's now at more than 50 airports and continues to grow.

Lynette Blas-Bamba manages Sea-Tac's 12-officer behavior-detection team. Since the program started here in November 2006, more than 600 people have been referred for secondary inspections, she said. Of those, 11 were arrested.

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," Maccario said. "It's more relevant how you respond. Vague, evasive responses -- fear shows itself. When you do this long enough, you see it right away."

Maccario emphasized that the program takes into account the typical stress many of us experience when traveling, especially during the holidays.

Ordinary people who are feeling anxious are "much more open with their body movements and their facial expressions as compared to an operational terrorist (thinking) 'I've got to defeat security,' " Maccario said. "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."

The detection teams look for those indicators to spike when a traveler with something to hide approaches security checkpoints.

Blas-Bamba and her team were trained in fall 2006. She says she did behavioral detection of a sort in her last job as a probation officer. "We all do it to a degree. It's just a matter of understanding and articulating what we see."

Part of the training is a cultural awareness component, Maccario said. For example, in some cultures people don't make eye contact with people in authority.

And to emphasize the sensitivity TSA is bringing to the program, he recalled a meeting with an association for people with Tourette's disorder to assure them that having a tic will not result in a pat-down.

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

"We don't care where you are from," Maccario said. "It's no longer subjective. If you are acting a certain way, that's what is going to attract our attention.

"There is no reliable picture of a terrorist," he added, citing American terrorists like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and "the fact that al-Qaida continues to recruit people that blend into society."

The program, however, has raised privacy and civil liberties concerns.

"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.

But Naseem Tuffaha, political chairman of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's Seattle chapter, looks at the program as a potential step away from racial profiling.

"Our message in working with federal and local authorities has been to make behavioral-based decisions rather than ethnic-profiling decisions. Our message is to really focus on suspicious behavior rather than suspicious-looking people," he said.

But Tuffaha warned that if the TSA "only looked hard when somebody is Middle Eastern-appearing ... then you are still conducting racial profiling under a different name."

[SubGeniusX]

facecrime?

He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had not been perfectly under control. 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. (Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part 1, Chapter 5)

[SubGeniusX]

Scary...

[SubGeniusX]

Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.

[BenLurkin]

The program, however, has raised privacy and civil liberties concerns. "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.

So the ACLU lawyers don't want racial profiling and now is doesn't want this either?

Do the ACLU lawyers ever get on a plane?

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

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.

Then, I'm already in trouble since I have nothing but for contempt for TSA after regularly watching them hassle elderly men and women of obviously European descent while waving Middle Easterners on through the check point.

[massgopguy]

My boss was coming home from Israel and the Security at Ben Gurion asked him if he had packed his suitcase himself. He answered that he had and it had not been out of his possession. They Yellow Tagged him for answering a question they had not yet asked.

[TheThirdRuffian]

Apparently, they single out parents traveling alone with a three year old.

Or at least that is my experience.

Disney Princess backpacks are deeply suspicious.

[taxcontrol]

LOL - I was asked where I was heading once by a TSA screener. I told them “The bathroom”. To which they replied “Business or Pleasure?”. I just kind of stared at the guy until he realized the conversation (took about 10 seconds).

[G8 Diplomat]

1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a compliment.

[Doogle]

..here's an expression, the ex wife expression

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Just because they say they have the technology, doesn't mean they do.

The government will buy anything, whether it works or not, as long as it is outrageously expen$ive.

The first law of bureaucracy is: "He who spends the most money is the most important."

[Tijeras_Slim]

Meanwhile, this guy gets extra drink coupons.

[StolarStorm]

Great. That means that those of us that have a slight case of aspergers syndrome will get searched every time we fly.

[Smogger]

"How are you today?"

"Where are you heading?"

"Is this all your property?"

"Papers, please!"

Wow. Just insert add a German accent and we can all travel back to 1939 Europe.

[JeeperFreeper]

And to add to your number 2: “and is produced by a big campaign contributor or close relative”

[purpleraine]

We had a flight home out of DeGaulle 6 weeks after 9-11. A guy went through the line and interviewed us. Another guy, who I took as the supervisor, stood behind him and mad dogged us over the first guy’s sholder. Human lie detectors?

[John Jorsett]

[Smogger]

Yellow tagged? What the heck? Did they slap a Star of David on him or what?

[null and void]

I get that a lot...

[rahbert]

At SeaTac you are hassled by TSA whilst hijabbed Somalis
clean the plane. Its like they deliberately attempt to
cause unease and resentment.

Its beyond stupid to employ immigrants from the Umma whose
backgrounds one can only guess at to do this whilst TSA guys
hassle granny in line.

Oh well, we voted for it. Who is the Rep for SeaTac/Burien?