Show your ID, but no fear

Fewer than 1% of airline passengers singled out at airports for suspicious behavior are arrested, Transportation Security Administration figures show, raising complaints that too many innocent people are stopped.

A TSA program launched in early 2006 that looks for terrorists using a controversial surveillance method has led to more than 160,000 people in airports receiving scrutiny, such as a pat-down search or a brief interview. That has resulted in 1,266 arrests, often on charges of carrying drugs or fake IDs, the TSA said.

Though most of the 160K were simply pulled aside for some additional questioning or scrutiny, note that 15K of them were actually questioned by the police — and it’s of that number that 1.3K (under 10%) were arrested.

Now, of course, this is designed a single layer of security, not as an impenetrable wall against terror. On the other hand, it doesn’t sound like any of the folks pulled aside, let alone the handful arrested, were, in fact, terrorists, or posed any danger to the planes or their passengers. 

The TSA, of course, is gung-ho about the program.

TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said the program has been “incredibly effective” at catching criminals at airports. “It definitely gets at things that other layers of security might miss,” Howe said. […] The TSA has not publicly said if it has caught a terrorist through the program. The agency says that some who are arrested, particularly on fake ID charges, may be scouting an airport for a possible attack.

But, of course, they don’t know that (or, knowing, are not telling for some reason). One might just as easily say they are all drug smugglers, or child pornographers, or secret agents.

And, that said, there’s still not much in the way of any hard data to indicate that the program is effective at spotting “terrorists.” For one thing, again, we don’t know of any terrorists who have been caught. Nor do we know of any terrorists who have slipped by. Nor do we know of how many potential “hits” (based on behavior) were missed by the TSA agents.  It’s difficult, in those circumstances, to have an confidence that the program does any better than a random sampling. 

Some scientists say the TSA effort is just as likely to flag a nervous traveler as a terrorist. “The use of these technologies for the purpose that the TSA is interested in moves into an area where we don’t have proven science,” said Robert Levenson, a psychologist at the University of California-Berkeley.  Although observers can perceive whether someone appears anxious or is acting deceptively, they can’t tell whether that person is planning an attack or something such as an extramarital affair, Levenson said.

Levenson and Fienberg were part of a National Academy of Sciences team whose report last month said “behavioral surveillance” has “enormous potential for violating” privacy. The report calls for more research and says surveillance should be used only as “preliminary screening” to find people who merit “follow-up investigation.” That is how the TSA uses the program, Howe said.

Paul Ekman, a San Francisco psychologist who helped design the TSA program, said it can be effective. But it needs more study, he said. “The shortcoming is, we don’t know how many people are showing suspicious behaviors and aren’t being noticed,” Ekman said.

This lack of effectiveness, thoroughness, or even value (aside from catching a handful of folks with drugs) isn’t stopping the TSA from expanding the program.

The program has grown from 43 major airports last year to more than 150 airports, including some with just 20 flights a day. The number of behavior officers will jump from 2,470 to 3,400 by October.

Your tax dollars at work. But don’t be nervous about it — you never know who might be watching.