TSA last month expanded to
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport a pilot program in which security
officers at checkpoints engage travelers in conversations to determine if
additional screening is warranted.
The Transportation Security
Administration in August first tested this behavior-detection screening method at Boston Logan and now is considering further program expansion. "The
vast majority of passengers at the pilot airport checkpoints experience a
'casual greeting' conversation with a behavior detection officer as they pass
through travel document verification," according to remarks from TSA
administrator John Pistole prepared for a Senate committee hearing last week.
One commenter in a FlyerTalk forum who encountered the new program last week in Detroit fielded such
questions as "What is your state of residence?" "Who do you work
for?" and "Did you check any bags?"
Based on traveler responses
to such questions, transportation security officers "employ specialized
behavioral analysis techniques to determine if a traveler should be referred
for additional screening at the checkpoint," Pistole explained.
He claimed that
"preliminary analysis from Boston shows an increase in the rate of detection
of high-risk passengers," but added that "additional data is required
to understand if the trend seen in the Boston data is statistically significant
and replicable at other airports."
House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) last month during a visit
to Boston Logan called the program "a mess," according to the Huffington Post, citing what he
perceived as minimal training for the behavior detection officers and
"idiotic questions." George Naccara, TSA's federal security director
at Logan, in response said behavior detection officials receive five days of
classroom training and up to 32 hours of on-the-job training, according to the Boston Herald.