$1 Billion TSA Behavioral Screening Program Slammed as Ineffective “Junk Science”
24th March 2015
The claim arose in a lawsuit (pdf) filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has tried unsuccessfully to get the TSA to release documents on its SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques) [pdf]) program through the Freedom of Information Act.
SPOT, whose techniques were first used in 2003 and formalized in 2007, uses “highly questionable” screening techniques, according to the ACLU complaint, while being “discriminatory, ineffective, pseudo-scientific, and wasteful of taxpayer money.” TSA has spent at least $1 billion on SPOT.
The ACLU, of course, would be opposed to any screening program that treats, oh, say, young Middle Eastern males differently from white grannys from Iowa. (Although I’m fully prepared to believe that anything run by the TSA is based on junk science; I’d just like the analysis to come from a credible source.)
‘Behavioral screening’ is the method that Israelis use for their airline, so obviously it doesn’t work worth a darn — look at all those Israeli airline planes being hijacked and blown up.