Aviation securityTSA expands trial of behavior analysis program
Detroit’s Metro International Airport will soon become the second test ground for the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) “chat down” program, as it is called by critics; under the program, which was tested earlier this year at Boston’s Logan Airport, TSA security screeners ascertain whether a passenger is a threat or not based on their reactions to several interview questions
Detroit’s Metro International Airport will soon become the second test ground for the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) “chat down” program, as it is called by critics.
Under the program, which was tested earlier this year at Boston’s Logan Airport, TSA security screeners ascertain whether a passenger is a threat or not based on their reactions to several interview questions.
The interviews are similar to what individuals encounter at a U.S. Customs checkpoint but are focused on terrorism.
Kawika Riley, a TSA spokesman, said the chat down program can help improve airport security.
“TSA has long recognized the value of a layered, threat-based approach to transportation security and the need to focus more of our resources on people who potentially pose a threat to aviation safety, in addition to the system’s current focus on high-risk items,” Riley said. “We will evaluate the impact on security, screening operations and passenger throughput, and determine how to proceed with this program.”
Since the program’s start on 15 August at Logan Airport, TSA’s behavior-detection officers have interviewed more than 110,000 passengers.
According to George Naccara, the federal security director of Logan, the interviews have not increased wait times at airport lines and led to the arrests of ten individuals on charges that include being in the United States illegally and having an outstanding warrant.
“We don’t have someone who admitted to being a terrorist,” Naccara said. “We’re detecting people who are attempting to deceive us. There are similar behaviors exhibited. There’s no distinction.”
Representative Bennie Thompson (D –Mississippi), the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, is skeptical of the program’s efficacy.
“Although the (behavior detection observers) may not have interviewed a sufficient number of passengers to yield a statistically significant result … TSA representatives indicated during the briefing that the agency plans on using the results of the pilot to determine whether the ‘assessor’ program should be expanded,” Thompson said of the program in the past.
For the Detroit trial, initially only passengers flying out of the Delta Airlines terminal will be questioned.
The agency plans to use the data gained from the program’s trials as the foundation for a trusted traveler program that it says will help reduce wait times at airport checkpoints for frequent fliers.
