TSA Deploys ‘Behavior Detection Officers’ at U.S. Airports

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 08.21.07 | 11:16 AM ET

It’s an Orwellian name for a rather Orwellian program. According to a story by Kaitlin Dirrig of McClatchy Newspapers, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley revealed last month that Behavior Detection Officers are currently working in airports around the country. They’re “watching body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions,” Dirrig writes. “The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant.” A TSA spokesperson added that 500 officers will be working in airports nationwide by the end of this year.

Among the signs they’re looking for are “micro-expressions,” including fear and disgust, which are associated with deception.

Dirrig writes:

Behavior detection officers work in pairs. Typically, one officer sizes up passengers openly while the other seems to be performing a routine security duty. A passenger who arouses suspicion, whether by micro-expressions, social interaction or body language gets subtle but more serious scrutiny.

A behavior specialist may decide to move in to help the suspicious passenger recover belongings that have passed through the baggage X-ray. Or he may ask where the traveler’s going. If more alarms go off, officers will “refer” the person to law enforcement officials for further questioning.

Patty Davis, for one, is skeptical. She writes in a commentary for Newsweek: “Let’s be really clear here. If a stranger moved in on me like that, I’d tell that person to go to hell, throw in a few other expletives for good measure and probably give them the finger as I stomped off. Of course, I wouldn’t be stomping very far.”

Photo by goldberg via Flickr (Creative Commons).