Travelers - TSA - "signs" you might be a terrorist

[mvan1]

More nonsense coming to the airports.

Now TSA personnel are given "courses" and other "training" to "detect" a possible terrorist.

If selected by a TSA officer for extra screening, who knows what more foolishness you will face merely because you want to travel.

Wouldn't it be great if we all could take a short behavioral course and know who is likely to be a criminal or worse?

Here is the most recent TSA video:

Actually, the video is funny and it has a lot of gay overtones.

[RA1]

This has to be a spoof. No one could interpret these kinds of behavior OR act this way in real life. However, it is amusing.

Best regards,

RA1

[OneFinger]

I paid the $85 fee and got TSA Pre-Check. Don't have any problems at the airports. Well worth the money.

[mvan1]

This has to be a spoof. No one could interpret these kinds of behavior OR act this way in real life. However, it is amusing.

Best regards,

RA1

That was my reaction also until I saw news articles about the ridiculous program.

The TSA video is a spoof take-off on the leaked documents of TSA.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from one article discussing the procedure:

The next time you’re in an airport, you’ll be frozen in fear, touching nothing and no one because according to leaked TSA behavior checklists, basically existing in an airport is enough to get you suspected of terrorism.

The Intercept obtained a confidential TSA document that details its terrorism checklist — behaviors that could get you suspected of illegal activity in an airport. The goal is to identify potential terrorists by their suspicious airport behavior, a program know as SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques). Officers are supposed to assign point values to your specific behaviors. Too many points and you’re getting cavity searched in the back.

Among the things that could earn you possible points are “exaggerated yawning”, “throat clearing” and “arriving late for a flight.” Signs of deception include blinking quickly and covering your “mouth with hand when speaking.” If you’re not already paranoid about your normal actions being misconstrued as diabolical plotting, don’t forget that “paranoia” is also on the checklist. No emotion is safe!

Here is one full article:

http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopics/2015/04/17/tsas-secret-terrorist-behavior-checklist-leaked-and-its-insane/

And another article along the same lines:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/03/31/heres-tsas-secretive-list-of-suspicious-behaviors/

Hugh Handeyside, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said Monday that the checklist “drives home the absurdity” of the behavior-detection program.

“Airports are rich environments for the kind of stress, exhaustion, or confusion that the TSA apparently finds suspicious, and research has long made clear that trying to judge people’s intentions based on supposed indicators as subjective or commonplace as these just doesn’t work,” Handeyside said in a statement.

TSA defended the program in a statement on Tuesday, stressing that "no one single behavior alone will cause a traveler to be referred to additional screening or result in a call to a law-enforcement officer."

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[RA1]

Thanks for the further information. I almost always get additional scrutiny because I have only bought a handful of R-T tickets during my career with thousands of airline flights. I am going home after delivering a plane or going to get one which involves the one way airline flight.

All this despite the fact that I have had the training and the background check to allow me to be in the operations area for aircraft. In other words the ID badge for MEM airport. You may be interested to know the badge is only good at MEM which is totally silly because, with minor variations, all US airports have the same rules (FAA/TSA). Still all pilots wear their "home" badge because it does make them instantly recognizable as pilots which eases the way to your airplane parked at other than your base airport.

Best regard,

RA1