Don't act "suspicious" -- TSA testing SPOT "observation" program

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Edward Hasbrouck <edward () hasbrouck org>
Date: October 8, 2004 5:23:53 AM GMT+01:00
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: Don't act "suspicious" -- TSA testing SPOT "observation" 
program

The TSA has issued no press release or official announcement of "SPOT",
but news stories such as the one in _Time_ refer to the "profiling 
program
in place at Boston's Logan Airport, on which it is based."

As I've discussed in my blog, Logan's program uses "appearance" or
"behavioral" profiling as eumphemisms for Israeli-style ethnic and 
racial
stereotyping.  The scheme is the product of Massport and Mass. State
Police consultant and former Ben-Gurion Airport (TLV) security director
Rafi Ron, who also apparently advised the MBTA in their warrantless
searches of Massachusetts transit passengers, staring shortly before the
Democratic Convention in Boston.

Ron retired from his job with the Israeli Airports Authority just before
11 September 2001, and started his new career as a freelance consultant
just a few weeks later in Boston.  Ron has been the leading advocate in
the USA of collecting additional data on airline passengers as a tool to
assist human, rather than robotic profiling, and has based his 
consulting
career on his claimed skill at uncovering would-be terrorists through
review of data collected about them in advance, combined with personal
"interviews" (interrogations).

The one time I met Ron at an airline industry conference, he sneered --
quite literally -- at my question of whether concerns for civil 
liberties
would justify any limitations on measures which might otherwise, to any
degree, reduce the risk of terrorism. Anyone who would even ask such a
question, he said dismissively, clearly doesn't understand the situation
we are in -- we are at war, and can afford *no* limits on tactics of 
war.


----------------
Edward Hasbrouck
<edward () hasbrouck org>
<http://hasbrouck.org>
+1-415-824-0214

"The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World"
(3rd edition, February 2004)
"The Practical Nomad Guide to the Online Travel Marketplace"
<http://www.practicalnomad.com>


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