So if we’re not going to strip-search and toss into cryogenic freeze all airline passengers, we’re faced with the possibility of folks slipping Bad Stuff onto airplanes. (Of course, make it too difficult to get onto planes and the Bad Guys simply change to trains, busses, bridges, office buildings, etc., but let’s not go there.)
So what’s the alternative? Watching for people behaving suspiciously.
The American version of the airport behavior observation program got its start in Boston, said Thomas G. Robbins, former commander of the Logan International Airport police.
After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, he said, state police officers there wondered whether a technique they had long used to try to identify drug couriers at the airport might also work for terrorists. The officers observed travelers’ facial expressions, body and eye movements, changes in vocal pitch and other indicators of stress or disorientation. If the officers’ suspicions were aroused, they began a casual conversation with the person, asking questions like “What did you see in Boston?” followed perhaps by
“Oh, you’ve been sightseeing. What did you like best?”The questions themselves are not significant, Mr. Robbins said. It is the way the person answers, particularly whether the person shows any sign of trying to conceal the truth.
It’s not a perfect program, by any means — it’s subjective, prone to abuse, prone to inept follow-up, and if it’s too clear what’s being looked for, people can try to “act” their way past it.
Still, any security is liable to most of those problems (cf. current security checkpoints at airports). As an added layer, it’s another tool that can possibly keep us from going crazy on the other layers.
(via Defective Yeti)