http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-28-airport-security_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA
Posted 12/28/2005 12:22 AM Updated 12/28/2005 10:19 AM
Airport security uses talk as tactic By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
The Transportation Security Administration plans to train screeners at 40 major airports next year to pick out possible terrorists by engaging travelers in a casual conversation to detect whether a person appears nervous or evasive and needs extra scrutiny. The new security technique, already in use at some airports, adds a psychological dimension to screening by trying to find high-risk passengers based on how they act at checkpoints or boarding gates.
Passengers who raise suspicions will undergo extra physical screening and could face police questioning.
Airports in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Detroit and Miami recently began using the technique.
Some airport and transit police already look for people acting oddly such as wearing a heavy coat in the summer or appearing to be doing surveillance and question them about travel plans.
WHERE BEHAVIOR IS MONITORED
Among agencies trained in behavior detection:
Airport police in Boston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Minneapolis-St. Paul
Transit police and workers in New York City, Washington
U.S. Park Police in New York City (Statue of Liberty)
New York police counterterrorism bureau in New York City
Transportation Security Administration screeners in Boston; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Warwick, R.I.; Portland and Bangor, Maine
"I don't want (officers) just sitting there waiting for a call to come in. I want them observing people, observing their behavior and engaging them in conversation. They're looking for people whose activities don't look right," says Alvy Dodson, public safety director at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Last year, 70% of DFW's 167 airport police were trained in the program.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says the technique leads to racial profiling and has sued to stop a behavior-screening program run by the Massachusetts State Police at Boston's Logan International Airport. That program, the first at a U.S. airport when it began in 2002, was challenged last year after a black ACLU official said he was questioned and threatened with arrest if he didn't show identification.
"If you're going to allow police to make searches, question people and even make arrests based on criteria rather than actual evidence of criminality, you're going to have racial profiling," says Barry Steinhardt, a privacy law specialist at the ACLU.
Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Peter DiDomenica calls the program "an antidote to racial profiling" that focuses on "objective behavioral characteristics." He says the program has curbed racial profiling "because we've educated people."
Behavior detection is routine in security-conscious countries such as Israel, where air travelers routinely face aggressive questioning.
U.S. Customs officers have long asked arriving travelers questions, often in random order. If a person gives "stumbling answers," that could indicate the person has fraudulent travel documents or plans to overstay a visa, says Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Kelly Klundt.
The TSA also began using behavior detection at Logan in 2003 and last year at airports in Warwick, R.I., and Portland, Maine. Mass transit systems in New York City and Washington adopted the technique after train bombings in Madrid and London.
Concerns about racial profiling have meant "there's been a lot of reluctance in TSA to expand this," says George Naccara, TSA security director at Logan.
Naccara says he persuaded TSA chief Kip Hawley to try behavior detection at numerous high-risk airports. "It's another effective layer of security which is relatively cheap," Naccara says.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-27-body-language_x.htm
Posted 12/27/2005 11:15 PM
Suspects' body language can blow their cover By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
BOSTON Carl Maccario noticed it the instant he watched a tape of three Sept. 11 hijackers going through security at Dulles International Airport. Not one of the men looked at security guards.
"They all looked away and had their heads down," Maccario says.
Avoiding eye contact with authorities is the kind of behavior that could indicate someone may be planning a terrorist attack, says Maccario, a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) program analyst at Boston's Logan International Airport. "The fear of discovery changes people's behavior and body language," he says.
Next year, the TSA says it will train screeners at 40 airports in behavior analysis. The screeners will join a growing number of police officers learning to detect the subtle, often unspoken clues that terrorists and criminals could display.
The technique is called behavior detection or behavior-pattern recognition. It's rooted in the notion that people convey emotions in subconscious gestures, facial expressions, speech patterns and answers to simple questions such as what flight they are taking.
Police trying technique
Careful observation and questions of escalating intensity can unmask possible terrorists, who typically become anxious and deceptive around authorities, says Rafi Ron, former security chief at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport. Ron founded New Age Security Solutions in Virginia in October 2001 to teach police how to detect "indicators" of a possible terrorist.
"There needs to be a shift in law enforcement culture from being responsive to criminal situations to being preventative by detecting the possibility of a terrorist attack," Ron says.
Since 9/11, behavior recognition has been adopted by various airport and transit police, as well as Northwest Airlines and U.S. Park Police at the Statue of Liberty.
Even at the University of Maryland, about 30 of the 90 police officers at the main campus near Washington, D.C., were trained last year to "help identify individuals that might pose some threat," Maj. Cathy Atwell says.
The American Civil Liberties Union is skeptical that police can detect criminals by studying people's actions and emotions. The organization worries that police will simply target minorities.
"When we begin to say to police officers that they're allowed to guess about who's dangerous, we're inviting the possibility of abuse," says Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program.
The TSA was reluctant to expand behavior detection beyond the five airports where screeners already use it because of concerns about racial profiling, says George Naccara, TSA security director at Logan.
Police at New York City's major airports Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark got a presentation about behavior detection two years ago but "have taken no steps to implement it," says Tony Ciavolella, a spokesman for the airports.
On a recent afternoon at Logan, Laura Graham, a graduate student heading home to Washington, D.C., for the holidays, says she knew instantly why a screener casually asked where she was headed. "I'm not really sure he's going to find people" who are terrorists, Graham says. "But I definitely respect the security efforts."
Behavior detection is "a recognized and legitimate law enforcement tool," says George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. "But it's also ripe for abuse. A person's observations are often colored by one's bias and prejudices."
Turley cites studies in which whites and minorities were shown photos of people of various races.
White subjects were far more likely to say the depicted minorities appeared dangerous, Turley says, while minorities viewed fellow minorities as non-threatening.
Turley says behavior detection could lead to more people being searched. Courts allow police searches based on a "reasonable suspicion" of wrongdoing. The suspicion has to be more than a hunch, he says.
Behavior-detection training "can be used as a virtual script for the abusive officer," Turley says. "It gives a ready-made list of elements that can be claimed as reasonable suspicion."
Evasive answers are clue
The University of Maryland's Atwell says behavior-detection training helps police. She says a university officer recently got in a residence-hall elevator and noticed a man move to the back, stuff his hands in his pockets and not respond when the officer said hello. A conversation led to the man being charged with drug possession.
Airport police using behavior detection haven't found terrorists but say officers using the technique have arrested people on charges of drug possession, immigration violations and taking excessive cash out of the country.
"Because of this physical manifestation of stress and nervousness, we did identify them," says Naccara, the Logan security director.
Customs officials point to the 1999 arrest of "Millennium Bomber" Ahmed Ressam, whose evasive answers at a port in Washington state alarmed a Customs officer.
A search of Ressam's car revealed explosives that he planned to detonate on New Year's Day 2000 at Los Angeles International Airport. Ressam is serving a 22-year sentence.
San Francisco psychologist Paul Ekman, author of Emotions Revealed, says people can be trained to detect lies by observing whether someone is "thinking really hard to answer a question they should know the answer to."
Tests haven't been done in real settings such as an airport or on whether a terrorist could learn to appear honest.
Ekman says he has tried for 15 years to get the government to study behavior detection in places such as airports.
"Lab studies have proven people can detect liars," Ekman says. "We need studies to see if training can help people in the field."