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I Spy With My Little Eye: TSA Rolling Out New ‘Behavior Detection Officers’
08/03/2011
Passengers flying through Boston’s Logan International Airport will notice the security screeners are chattier than usual, but it’s not an improved customer service policy.
On Tuesday the Transportation Security Administration began a test-run at Logan of its SPOT program, which stands for Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques. SPOT uses trained screeners known as Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs) to determine if passengers are a threat, based on their reactions to a set of routine questions.
“The vast majority of passengers will experience a casual greeting conversation with the BDO as they go through identity verification,” a TSA spokesperson said. “A small portion of passengers may get selected for an extended, but still limited conversation.”
According to the Boston Herald, the BDOs will ask three to four questions — from “Where have you been?” to “Do you have a business card?” and “Where are you traveling?” — while looking for minute facial cues that may indicate deception or malicious intent.
Since its creation in 2007, TSA’s SPOT program has grown almost fifteen-fold. As of May 2010, about 3,000 BDOs were deployed at 161 airports nationwide at an annual cost of more than $200 million.
So far, after three years of operation and almost $1 billion spent, SPOT has never been scientifically proven effective and has never caught one actual terrorist.
