Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: the terminal of geoff goodfellow <geoff () iconia com>
Date: August 21, 2006 11:15:12 AM EDT
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'?

Which Travelers Have 'Hostile Intent'?
Biometric Device May Have the Answer
By JONATHAN KARP and LAURA MECKLER
August 14, 2006; Page B1

At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer,
scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain,
sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones.

With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses,
the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch
screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses --
blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by
software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying
out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions.

The trial of the Israeli-developed system represents an effort by the
U.S. Transportation Security Administration to determine whether
technology can spot passengers who have "hostile intent." In effect,
the screening system attempts to mechanize Israel's vaunted
airport-security process by using algorithms, artificial-intelligence
software and polygraph principles.

Neither the TSA nor Suspect Detection Systems Ltd., the Israeli
company, will discuss the Knoxville trial, whose primary goal was to
uncover the designated bad guys, not to identify threats among real
travelers. They won't even say what questions were asked of travelers,
though the system is generally designed to measure physical responses
to hot-button questions like "Are you planning to immigrate
illegally?" or "Are you smuggling drugs."

[snip]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/ 
SB115551793796934752-2hgveyRtDDtssKozVPmg6RAAa_w_20070813.html


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