TSA to screen DIA passengers' behavior

Eric Schmidt, Daily Camera

Published April 23, 2007 at midnight

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A Transportation Security Administration effort to screen air travelers for suspicious behavior is on track to come to Denver International Airport this year, subjecting passengers to observation and small talk from agents looking for signs of deception.

The SPOT program - short for "screening passengers by observation technique" - is modeled after Israeli security measures that pick up on facial expressions, body language and other involuntary reactions that occur when people lie. TSA officials won't list which behaviors raise concerns or say how many screeners are involved, citing security concerns.

"We're not just looking for people who seem suspicious, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said. "We're looking for behaviors that have been proven by scientific research to indicate that an individual is suppressing high levels of stress or fear or deception. People who are up to something, basically."

Travelers who raise behavioral flags or give evasive answers to casual questions about their trips can be taken aside and searched or turned over to law enforcement.

Davis would not disclose which U.S. airports are targeted for the program, which she said is being phased in gradually since first being tested in Boston in 2003. But she said the agency is on track to deploy "behavior detection officers" at 40 of the nation's busiest airports by the end of 2007.

Davis called the initiative "very successful and very accurate," and said it has led screeners to passengers with fake passports or identification, drug smugglers and people in the country illegally. She said it's unclear if any suspects had links to terrorism because many cases are still under investigation.

Davis called the program "an antidote to racial profiling."

But Judd Golden, chairman of the Boulder County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, disagreed, saying behavioral screening employs the same statistical generalizations as profiling.

He said the TSA program violates Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

"When a government official chooses to use discretion to say, 'We have a reasonable suspicion,' that ought to be based on individual characteristics, not patterns of behavior," he said, adding that legitimate causes for a search would include carrying a weapon through a metal detector or talking about having a bomb.

Overly broad characteristics used to profile drug smugglers - such as walking too slow or too fast, buying one-way tickets or paying in cash - were struck down in court for good reason, Golden said.

"They're devolving back into the same kinds of supposed predictors . . . and we don't think that's appropriate," he said.

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