TSA Pilots Traveler Behavior Screenings In Boston

I have only one historical observation; "Papers please! Your papers are not in order! Come with me."
The domestic version of the Global Entry program can not come fast enough for me!


From BTN

The Transportation Security Administration will expand its Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques program by requiring every airline passenger traveling through Boston Logan International Airport to engage in a "brief conversation" with a TSA officer, who will perform a behavior analysis. A 60-day pilot begins August 15.

Confirming several media reports about the new pilot, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said passengers will be asked three or four questions, possibly related to their recent whereabouts, their destination and whether they have a business card.

"All passengers are being screened normally, but during the screening, it's [their] interaction with the behavior officer, not so much your answer," Davis said. "These officers are trained to observe passengers who are [displaying] physical and physiological signs that they fear discovery or that they are being deceptive."

Though the SPOT program first took effect in 2003 and currently is used in 160 airports, "what's different is that we are positioning this right at the checkpoint along with the document checker," Davis said. Up to this point, she explained, TSA officers "have walked around and observed passengers, and they have engaged passengers in conversation, and they have referred passengers for additional screenings." Now in Boston, if a TSA officer is suspicious of a passenger following the behavioral assessment at the checkpoint, that passenger will "undergo a pat-down and have your carry-on physically searched."

TSA will use the pilot in Boston to "inform any next steps," Davis said. "We will look at the data that we collect during the 60 days and we will look at how the program impacts passengers and screening operations, and how it impacts wait times."

TSA acknowledged the program could make some travelers uneasy, but accepts that "normal behavior in an airport involves some level of nervousness and anxiety," Davis said. She also claimed the program "is an antidote to racial profiling because race and ethnicity is not something we look at all. If you just focus on someone's race or ethnicity you are going to miss a terrorist."