By Leischen Stelter
The recent shooting at LAX airport has reinvigorated the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of airport security. Some people think the TSA should create a class of armed officers with law enforcement training who have the authority to arrest people. Others advocate for stationing armed police officers at security checkpoints. The Los Angeles police chief has weighed in saying he wants more curbside camera surveillance systems to monitor people as they enter the airport.
So with all this debate revolving around guns, I was surprised to read that the issue at the center of the Nov. 14 House Subcommittee on Transportation Security had nothing to do with firearms or even ways to enhance airport security. Instead, it was all about whether or not the TSA should get rid of its behavior detection officers (BDOs).
In case you’re not familiar with this layer of security, the TSA’s Behavior Detection and Analysis (BDA) program was formally established in 2006. As TSA Administrator John Pistole (a very well respected law enforcement official, by the way) explained during his (written) testimony to Congress, BDOs focus on behavioral indicators, rather than on items.
These officers aren’t there to inspect your carry-on luggage, rather they are there to look for people who are acting strangely, seem out of place, or generally arouse suspicion. Passengers identified due to their anomalous behavior are subject to additional layers of physical screening and often brought to the attention of law enforcement officers. BDOs are not just stationed at security checkpoints either—they are often posted throughout the airport (secure and unsecure areas) to observe passengers.
Pistole said the TSA has 3,000 full-time BDOs in the aviation and surface transportation sectors (surface transportation has Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams). He told Congress that in 2012 there were 2,116 BDO screening referrals to law enforcement, which resulted in 30 boarding denials, 79 investigations by law enforcement entities, and 183 arrests.
Many law enforcement folks will tell you that behavior detection is an important element in policing. People who look nervous and act suspicious are usually up to no good. While behavior detection training is fairly sophisticated, the concept is simple: Use observation to identify if people are exhibiting anomalous behavior. If they are, ask them a few questions. If they give you strange answers or seem rattled, screen them again.
NBC News interviewed Rafi Ron, CEO of New Age Security Solutions and the former director of security at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport. Ron said the observational training supplements other screening systems and procedures.
“I think that it is an extremely important layer because otherwise we will go back to the so-called dark ages of believing that … this is all about detecting weapons or items,” he told the publication. “What we are doing is not enough. … If we are facing somebody who presents a high level of risk, then we need to search him beyond what we are doing at the airport level, the checkpoint level.”
But apparently not everyone sees the benefit of behavior detection. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report called TSA Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection Activities. The GAO said they reviewed 400 studies over 60 years that found people are only slightly better than chance at spotting deceptive behavior. However, John Pistole countered that this GAO report relies heavily on studies that focused on detecting people who are lying.
“It is important to note that TSA’s behavior detection approach does not attempt to specifically identify persons engaging in lying; rather, it is designed to identify individuals who may be deemed high-risk based on objective behavioral indicators,” said Pistole.
Pistole also stated that the BDO program has been scientifically proven to be more effective than random screening. He cited a 2011 independently conducted study that included over 70,000 random samples at 41 airports. The validation study found that TSA’s behavior detection identifies high-risk travelers at a significantly higher rate than random screening and concluded that a high-risk traveler is nine times more likely to be identified using behavioral detection versus random screening.
When it comes down to it, it’s all about the money. According to my (rough) calculations, TSA has not spent that much on this program. Pistole said the TSA spends $200 million to train these specialized officers and the TSA budget for FY2013 was $7.6 billion. The agency spent 2.6 percent of its annual budget on this program, which doesn’t seem like that much of an investment.
What do you think? Should the program be cut? Have you ever been trained in behavior detection techniques? Do you consider it to be effective?
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