Spotting the Airline Terror Threat

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Sun Oct 3 08:37:57 PDT 2004


Wherein the TSA thinks they can observe a lot by watching...

Cheers,
RAH
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<http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,708924,00.html>

 Saturday, Oct. 02, 2004
Spotting the Airline Terror Threat
TIME exclusive: A new airport security system soon to be tested will rely
on human judgment
By  SALLY B. DONNELLY/WASHINGTON

 TIME exclusive: A new airport security system soon to be tested will rely
on human judgment  The most dangerous threat to commercial aviation is not
so much the things bad people may be carrying, but the bad people
themselves. That refrain heard constantly from airline security experts
over the past three years appears to have finally been heeded by the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Aviation sources tell TIME
that the TSA plans to address the problem by launching its own passenger
profiling system. The system known as SPOT (Screening of Passengers by
Observation Techniques) relies more on the human dimension in detecting
threats, and is to be tested at two northeastern airports starting later
this month.

 "This is a radical change to aviation security," says Sgt. Peter
DiDomenica, the Massachusetts State Police officer who developed the
racially-neutral profiling program in place at Boston's Logan Airport, on
which SPOT is based. "This is a very subtle but very effective program."

 Unlike the TSA's recently announced program to use computer databases to
scan for suspicious individuals whose names occur on passenger lists, SPOT
is instead based squarely on the human element: the ability of TSA
employees to identify suspicious individuals by using the principles of
surveillance and detection. Passengers who flag concerns by exhibiting
unusual or anxious behavior will be pointed out to local police, who will
then conduct face-to-face interviews to determine whether any threat
exists. If such inquiries turn up other issues of concern, such as travel
to countries like Afghanistan, Iraq or Sudan, for example, police officers
will know to pursue the questioning or alert Federal counter-terrorism
agents.

 DiDomenica has first-hand experience of the effectiveness of the system.
He was using his own observation techniques - called BASS (Behavior
Assessment Screening System) - last year when he saw man acting oddly near
the checkpoint and stopped him. The suspect passenger turned out to be an
agent from the Department of Homeland Security who had been trying to test
the system by sneaking a prohibited device onto a plane.

 Although the profiling programs are aimed primarily at stopping
terrorists, they have had other benefits. The Massachusetts State Police
have arrested about 20 people for infractions ranging from being in the
country illegally to failing to answer outstanding warrants for various
offenses.

 The TSA plans to test SPOT for 60 days before committing to taking it
nationwide, eventually to all of the country's 429 commercial airports.


-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





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