Searching Passengers' Faces For Subtle Cues to Terror

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091801
891_pf.html
 
Searching Passengers' Faces For Subtle Cues to Terror


By Del Quentin Wilber and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; D01




Looking for signs of "stress, fear and deception" among the hundreds of
passengers shuffling past him at Orlando International Airport one day last
month, security screener Edgar Medina immediately focused on four casually
dressed men trying to catch a flight to Minneapolis
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Minneapolis?tid=informline>
.

One of the men, in particular, was giving obvious signs of trying to hide
something, Medina said. After obtaining the passengers' ID cards and
boarding passes, the Transportation Security Administration
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Transportation+Security+Adm
inistration?tid=informline>  officer quickly determined the men were illegal
immigrants traveling with fake Florida
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Florida?tid=informline>
driver's licenses. They were detained.

"It wasn't that unusual," Medina said. "We see more and more of that stuff
down here. Every day, that is what I'm looking for."

The otherwise mundane arrests Aug. 13 illustrated an increasingly popular
tactic in the government's effort to fight terrorism: detecting lawbreakers
or potential terrorists by their behavior. The TSA has embraced the
strategy, training 600 of its screeners, including Medina, in detection
techniques. Such screeners patrol the Washington region's three airports,
and by year's end, 1,000 screeners at more than 40 airports will be trained.

The TSA also plans to train screeners in the art of observing slight facial
movements that indicate a person is lying.

Although civil libertarians and top Democrats in Congress say the techniques
raise serious questions about privacy rights and racial and ethnic
profiling, TSA officials say the behavior-detection officers may play a more
important role in thwarting terrorist attacks than traditional screening
techniques.

The teams have referred more than 40,000 people for extra screening since
January 2006. Of those passengers, nearly 300 were arrested on charges
including carrying concealed weapons and drug trafficking. TSA officials
will not say whether the screeners have helped nab potential terrorists, but
they say terrorists and other lawbreakers exhibit the same behavioral clues.

...

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