"Giving Human Intuition a Place in Airport Security"

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Giving Human Intuition a Place in Airport Security 
By JOE SHARKEY
The New York (NY) Times


BACK when Times Square was less carefree, a retired New York City police
officer I know used to play a private game called Spot the Perp. Walking
along Eighth Avenue or on the Deuce, as the then-crime-ridden block of 42nd
Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues was known, the former officer
would try to pick out from the crowd the person most likely to commit at
least a Class B misdemeanor by midnight.

An experienced officer can spot trouble at 200 feet. It's manifest in the
assessing gait, the reconnoitering eyes and lots of other small tell-tale
signs.

I was reminded of Spot the Perp during a recent interview with Kip Hawley,
the head of the Transportation Security Administration, as he talked about
the agency's new emphasis on a layer of screening called behavioral
detection. The agency, of course, isn't looking for someone likely to commit
a street crime. It's looking for terrorists. 

The T.S.A. has about 600 so-called behavioral detection officers, some of
them promoted from the ranks of screeners, who have been trained in law
enforcement techniques of sizing up behavior, Mr. Hawley told me. He said
the agency expected to double that number in the next fiscal year and
probably double it again the following year. 

The idea is to enhance security before the checkpoint magnetometer, where
the focus is on things like potential weapons more than on people. A
well-trained eye and ear - emphasis on the well-trained - can pick up
signals a metal detector cannot.

"We started off thinking, What is it we do better than anybody else? What's
the advantage we have? And it's that we see two million people every day. We
know what normal is," Mr. Hawley said. A good behavioral detection officer
has developed the skills to separate normal airport anxieties from
fundamental signs of "hostile intent," he said. 

"We know what a hassled business traveler looks like," Mr. Hawley explained.
"We know what somebody who's just having a fight with their girlfriend or
boyfriend or whatever looks like. We know what the normal experience is. So
you build on top of that."

He added: "It doesn't matter what race, ethnicity, age or whatever a person
is. It's got to do with the human condition, that humans express certain
emotions unknown to them that you can detect." 

Now, I have been critical of the T.S.A. on occasion over the years. But it
has occurred to me this summer, when airline and airport delays are the
worst ever, that the only part of the system that has been running
efficiently has been T.S.A. security.

I hear every day from readers with serious complaints, including horror
stories, about air travel. But I seldom hear a big complaint about the
T.S.A. anymore, especially now that we've all become accustomed to the rules
on how much liquid we can carry on and in what size containers. 

Behavioral detection is a technique, not a science. It's an extra tool for
"risk management," Mr. Hawley said. Officers size up people at checkpoints
and elsewhere, sometimes by engaging them in casual conversation. It doesn't
constitute a third-degree grilling like the vaunted Israeli airport
security. Someone who sets off the first alarm qualifies for "a closer
look," Mr. Hawley said.

The T.S.A. is also testing technology to screen more efficiently for
explosives and other potential weapons and to improve the checkpoint
experience over all. 

As part of its new tack of evaluating behavior patterns, the agency plans to
take over more responsibility for checking passenger identification and
boarding passes at more airports, where most of those jobs are now done by
outside contract workers. The T.S.A. recently took over those functions at
Kennedy International Airport and plans to have 2,000 of its own officers
checking documents at airports around the country in the 2008 fiscal year.
That is nearly triple the existing force.

The place where your documents are checked is likely to be the only one you
or I are aware we're being sized up.

"It's another occasion where we get to interact with passengers," Mr. Hawley
said. "We're working on the 50-second interview. As you evaluate these
people's documents, maybe you say a couple of things to them and see how
they respond. That gives us a chance to see, does this person raise any
flags?"

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