THE FACE OF TERROR

At US airports, trained detectives who determine potential terrorists through behaviour indicators may have a more important role than traditional screening techniques

Looking for signs of “stress, fear and deception” among the hundreds of passengers shuffling past him at Orlando International Airport in Florida last month, security screener Edgar Medina immediately focused on four casually dressed men trying to catch a flight to Minneapolis.

One of the men, in particular, was giving obvious signs of trying to hide something. After obtaining the passengers’ ID cards and boarding passes, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer quickly determined the men were illegal immigrants travelling with fake Florida driver’s licenses. They were detained. “It wasn’t that unusual,” Medina said. “Every day, that is what I’m looking for.”

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The otherwise mundane arrests illustrated an increasingly popular tactic in the US Government’s effort to fight terrorism: detecting lawbreakers or potential terrorists by their behaviour. The TSA has embraced the strategy, training 600 of its screeners, including Medina, in detection techniques. By year’s end, 1,000 screeners at more than 40 airports will be trained. The TSA also plans to train screeners in the art of observing slight facial movements that indicate a person is lying.

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Although civil libertarians and top Democrats in Congress say the techniques raise serious questions about privacy rights and racial and ethnic profiling, TSA officials say the behaviour-detection officers may play a more important role in thwarting terrorist attacks than traditional screening techniques.

The teams have referred more than 40,000 people for extra screening since January 2006. Of those passengers, nearly 300 were arrested on charges including carrying concealed weapons and drug trafficking. TSA officials will not say whether the screeners have helped nab potential terrorists but say terrorists and other lawbreakers exhibit the same behavioural clues.

The TSA won’t publicly disclose what behaviour screeners are looking for. However, screeners, former screeners and consultants say the officers are looking for people travelling without bags, sweating and constantly checking out every person passing by, especially those with badges and guns. People who avoid eye contact or veer away when police approach also draw their attention. When deciding whether to target a passenger, TSA screeners generally do not rely on one trait but a combination of behaviours.

To become a behaviour-detection officer, screeners undergo four days of classroom training and three days of supervised on-the-job work.

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A new tool in their arsenal is the ability to determine when the slightest facial movement is masking a lie. All the officers and the TSA’s 1,000 inspectors, who also work at airports, will be trained in the technique.

David Matsumoto, research director for the Ekman Group, which conducts the TSA “micro-facial expression” training, said that micro-expressions are signs of concealed emotions and “are indications that the travelers have an emotional state that they don’t want anyone else to know about.” The expressions often last less than 1/15th of a second, he said. “When you’re not trained to see them, when you blink, you’ll miss them,” Matsumoto said. “Even if you don’t blink, they’re so fast people don’t realise what is happening.”

The TSA’s growing reliance on detecting behavior and the close study of passengers’ expressions concerns civil liberties groups and members of Congress. “The problem is behavioural characteristics will be found where you look for them,” said John Reinstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which is suing the Massachusetts State Police over an incident in which an officer trained in behaviour detection detained a passenger at the airport in 2003.

“The fact remains that Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent are perceived to be of particular threat,” he said. “So it is highly likely that those are the people whose behaviours will be more highly scrutinised. There is still the danger that (the technique) will be used in a racially discriminatory manner.”

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Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the programme’s aggressive expansion caused him concern. “When we get into something that is approaching behaviour, we have to be very careful that we don’t stereotype people because of their dress or their race,” said Thompson. “And we have to understand and protect the civil liberties and civil rights of people in this country.”

TSA officials say they have received no complaints from passengers about profiling or privacy violations connected to the behavior-detection effort.
(The Washington Post)