Leading Edge Strategies

Body Imager Mythbuster?

2012 April 3 by les-admin

With millions of hits a controversial video has been circulating the Internet in which an individual claims to be able to defeat the TSA body imagers. TSA’s response has been unsurprising in that they have not provided any real rebuttal to the man’s claims. But that is to be expected. To provide rebuttal, specific to this man’s claims, provides information to individuals who want to defeat the technology for criminal or terrorist purposes.

I know the video has been out for a few weeks and I have withheld comment so far. The problem is we have a claim on the Internet from somebody that I have never met, who claims to have defeated a body imager under conditions that no one but him really was aware of and he doesn’t have the advantage to see what actually was displayed on the screen. Additionally, we do not know what the TSA screener may have seen in the monitor and, whether automatic threat recognition was in use or maybe the TSA screener identified an innocuous item and decided to give the gentleman pass. Or maybe they did truly miss it. The fact is we just don’t know.

You can’t go your own way

2011 October 18 by leadingedgestrategies

Let’s Make a Deal – behind door number one is a no-hassle trip to your airplane, with no guarantee it will be hijacked or bombed. You’ll be flying old school.

Behind door number 2 is a body imager, whereupon your saturated fat bursting self will be viewed in all its unglamorous glory by people you don’t know – there’s even chance your unsexy image will be on YouTube before you are able to get to your plane, have your laptop crushed by the seat back of the insensitive jerk in front of you and the flight attendant gives you your peanut ration. But, your flight probably won’t be hijacked or bombed, that is unless some guy working at the airport, who is able to bypass security, decides to join al Qaeda.

Behind door number 3 is someone you’ve never met asking you intimate details about your travel plans, your personal life, and whether or not you still beat your wife.

Regardless, if you want to fly, you’re not getting out of here without choosing a door

So you choose door number 1, and behind it is a goat. Door number 1 means you’re not flying.

What’s next? If you choose door #2 the electric privacy rights groups will protest that your image is being displayed for all to see. If you choose door #3, the ACLU will protest that your intimate travel plans are “nunya,” as in none ya business.

As the old man in the third installment of Indiana Jones said, “you must choose.”

In a recent USAToday article, the TSA revealed their first major attempt at risk based security. Click here for the article. Whereas passengers have complained about the body imaging devices, now some are complaining about the allegedly intrusive questions that the new TSA assessor program is testing at Boston/Logan. It’s as close a mirror as you can reasonably get to how the Israelis conduct their operation and it’s too early to tell if it’s going to work.

Frankly, if this is done right, it should work. Even special operations personnel and undercover officers will tell you, the last thing you want to do when you’re trying to hide, is talk to someone.

As an upgrade from the TSA’s passive observation program, assessor puts security personnel before the screening process to engage in casual conversation to try to determine if an individual has something to hide. The process itself is time tested (when done correctly). It stopped the bombing of an El Al flight in 1986 out of London/Heathrow; security questioning is still used in airports throughout the European Union, like at the Leonardo DaVinci International Airport in Rome, and was widely used internationally prior to 9/11.

I have an old video clip that shows people being interviewed back in the early 70s, when passenger and carry-on bag screening first started. Back in the day, a plane was just as likely to take a weather delay as it was to get hijacked. We decided we needed to screen passengers for the safety and security of the flight – we used existing technologies and processes at the time. Today, we have another imminent threat and the technologies of the 1970′s are no longer adequate. We need to use the new technologies and processes  - so do you want door number 2 or 3?

If you really object to being questioned about your travel plans, then decide to head for the body imager. Otherwise, if you don’t mind sharing a few travel details, you have the potential to maybe undergo some lesser screening (someday). Regardless, you’re not getting on the plane without one form of screening or another. And frankly, I want you screened if I’m on your flight.

I applaud TSA for putting their money where their mouth is and making an attempt at testing this process to see if a proven technique is really scalable to our aviation system and to see whether it works.

What’s TSA up to?

2011 May 24 by leadingedgestrategies

It’s always good to see the folks from TSA headquarters and find out the latest and greatest. Last week they were at the American Association of Airport Executives Annual Conference, in Atlanta. Several of the usual suspects were on hand, along with, at one point, TSA Administrator John Pistole.

The hottest issue on everyone’s mind was the one that did not get addressed – the ongoing issue of law enforcement response to suspicious individuals. The question at hand is this: when a TSA Behavior Detection Officer feels that they have identified an passenger as suspicious and local law enforcement is called, what legal standing does the police officer have to ask questions and possibly even conduct a search of the individual, if that individual refuses to cooperate? That question was asked to Francine Kerner, Chief Counsel at the Transportation Security Administration. She provided a great lesson on the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, but unfortunately, not the answer to the question.

Upon being asked about this issue, Ms. Kerner launched into an explanation of what legal standing law enforcement officers have when an AIT (i.e. body imager) detects an anomaly on an individual. She articulated how, when an individual subjects themselves to a screening process, they are required to continue the entire process and cannot decide to stop and walk away. She dramatically repeated that we cannot allow a terrorist to walk away at the point of inspection, which, by the way, no rational individual disagrees with, and, was not the question on the table.

We’re talking about suspicious individuals (or those deemed as suspicious by a BDO) or those individuals that refuse to be searched prior to the screening checkpoint, but after passing a sign placed by TSA that essentially says, “beyond this point you may be subject to screening.” These are the two issues at hand.

The Constitution says that when a police officer stops an individual they must have reasonable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity. They must have “specific and articulable facts,” beyond just a hunch. This is what’s known as a “Terry stop,” a name taken from Terry v. Ohio, the landmark case upon with the premise of reasonable suspicion is based.

So what happens when a BDO asks a passenger, or meeter-and-greeter who is walking through the public terminal area to submit to a series of questions and the person either (a) refuses to talk to the BDO, or (b) red flags on some of the BDO behaviors and the BDO summons a police officer? Does either case constitute reasonable suspicion? Depends on the circumstances, but what about when a police officer disagrees with the BDO and allows the individual to continue to the screening checkpoint? Can TSA deny the individual access to an aircraft. Can TSA detain the individual if a police officer does not?

This is the question that went unanswered and for over a year, continues to go unanswered. However, Ms. Kerner did clarify a point on where screening begins. Previously, she has inferred that screening begins wherever TSA says so. Now it seems that location is at least the location of the Travel Document Check or the beginning of the screening queue line – just depends on which definition you like at the time. Actually, what we heard was “when you pass a sign that says screening begins, that’s helpful to the courts.”

Okay, well, we’ll run with that for now.

By the way, she also lamented that there was a provision within the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 for police at screening checkpoints and at airports to be federalized. That would have required about another 100,000 plus employees to be hired and sent to Glynco, Georgia to become federal agents to provide law enforcement support and coverage to U.S. airports – this would have been a complete waste of money since local law enforcement officers have provided this coverage for decades.

One point Ms. Kerner did make is that the recent efforts in Texas by the state legislature to outlaw the aggressive pat-down is a mistake. State law cannot supersede Federal law (check the 10th amendment). However, Texas’ attempt here does make the point that people are still unhappy with the pat downs.

What will hopefully help the pat down controversy are the new K-9′s that are being trained to sniff out explosives on people instead of inanimate objects. Apparently, due to some trademark issues, the term Vapor Wake Detection is not available, but the latest name for this program is called “people-sniffing dogs,” which is not only grammatically incorrect but sounds really bad. TSA is working on a new name, but in the meantime the program is thankfully, moving forward.

As I’ve said before, the last thing a bad guy wants to see is a dog. Dogs not only provide better security and add an element of randomness, they can also be used at the screening checkpoint to reconcile many alarms, instead of the aggressive pat downs. Maybe we can quit having screeners inappropriately touching children, and the elderly. Recently, at several screening checkpoints, I’ve noticed an inordinate amount of senior citizens receiving pat downs – and in one case (on my way to Atlanta) an elderly woman who was so feeble, another screener had to hold her arms up while she was being patted down. Obviously, it’s not beyond imagination to think that grandma or grandpa has been radicalized by al Qaeda and wants to go out with a bang, but let’s use some common sense. Trusted Traveler can’t get here fast enough.

In other news, expect the Expedited Access for Uniformed Crew Members program (aka Crew Pass) to progress. This program allows certain uniformed flight crew members (not flight attendants yet) to bypass certain screening processes, away from their home airport. At their home airport, most pilots have a local airport identification badge which allows them to bypass screening, but at other airports, they must go through a TSA checkpoint. Crew Pass is biometric based identification to ensure that the pilot who has been issued the credential, is really who they say they are.

Flight attendants, stay tuned. If the program is successful for the pilots, you’re likely next. As for passengers, we kept hearing about the Trusted Traveler concept coming back and TSA Administrator Pistole continued to promote that TT is being looked at and that we want to move to that concept, but so far everything is still in the study phases.

During the TSA Roundtable, several TSA personnel were asked what they would change if they could. I liked the answer given by John Sammon Assistant Administrator for Transportation Sector Network Management. Sammon said that he wishes to not have everything be so public. He cited Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s innovations in New York City. Using deception and tactical surges of law enforcement personnel, and programs like Operation Nexus, a network of businesses and enterprises joined in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks, Kelly’s innovations are credited with preventing terrorist attacks and reducing crime.

When I bumped into Sammon later he and I discussed this issue for a few moments. I ride the thin line between providing too much information and there not being enough information out there for airport and airline operators to provide effective security. The fact is, most airport and airline operators have little to no security backgrounds or experience. There needs to be a baseline education – just as a police officer will come to your home and tell you the basics of protecting your house against burglary, or you can buy any number of books about it off the Internet, our industry professionals need to be provided with the basics of aviation security. However, you always stop short of providing too much information and therein lies the rub.

Part of the problem with TSA is still credibility. After 9/11, TSA came on like the new sheriff in town, dismissing the work and the expertise that had been in the industry before and tried to impose their own way of thinking – on a world they didn’t totally understand. Over the past 10 years however, most of the knuckle-draggers have moved on and TSA’s upper ranks has filled up with a lot of high quality professionals – people who are motivated by the same things those of us at airports and airlines are and many TSA personnel now come directly from the aviation industry. Unfortunately, it’s the initial credibility black eye that has yet to heal.

John Sanders, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Security Technology for TSA, had the best answer on what he would like to see changed – Sanders desires to accelerate the cycle of evolving to threats and put technologies on the street faster as the threats are identified. On that note, note to airport operators, all those EDS machines are coming up on their maximum service life and need to be replaced. Keep an eye on changes and expenses here.

While the TSA staff was good to hear from, they did defer many questions to John Pistole’s upcoming presentation, which finally occurred on Wednesday, during the last day luncheon.

Pistole said that the death of bin Laden marks a significant achievement in the fight against terrorism, but not the end and others continue to pursue attacks against the United States, which I completely agree with. Pistole said that the TSA is the last line of defense, which I disagree with. Beyond the screening checkpoint, there are numerous other layers of security that are reliant on airport and airline operators. But, if a TSA TSO believes that the buck stops with them, then I’m fine with that level of vigilance.

Pistole made another important point, that so far, most TSA Administrator’s have been afraid to admit: he says we are not in the risk elimination business, but instead in the risk mitigation business. While we want to have 100% security, it’s not achievable. However, you usually don’t get elected to office (or appointed) by saying, “yes, we will make sure that most terrorist attacks are not successful,” even though that’s the best outcome you can hope for.

In over 50 years of aviation we still haven’t made flying (or driving for that matter) perfectly safe, yet we’ve reduced the risk to what most people feel are acceptable levels.

Pistole talked about advances in the Secure Flight program, which now allows TSA to have a better understanding of who is boarding commercial airliners, before they get on the plane.

Continuing with the trusted traveler concept, Pistole says that future screening checkpoints will focus on streamlining the passenger experience for low risk passengers, while not trying to establish a legend that the terrorist can figure out. While future trusted travelers will likely receive less screening, there will always be random screening throughout all of the screening processes – whether you’re trusted or not.

Pistole said that he sees partnerships moving forward between TSA and industry, provided that any change strengthens, and doesn’t weaken security. Unfortunately, at the end of his comments, there was not much chance to hear from the “partners” as he quickly left the podium and did not take any questions.

TSA is under fire for advanced screening of a 6-year-old, and they should be

2011 April 14 by les-admin

Eat, drink, especially drink, and be merry

2011 February 26 by leadingedgestrategies

The country that kicked off the liquid ban seems like it’s ready to end it, at least partially. At the end of April, the European Union will allow passengers passing through Europe from a third country to carry liquids, aerosols and gels purchased either at an airport duty-free shop or on board a non-European airline. Unfortunately, the technology to scan liquids is still far from perfect. However, this reaction is not entirely surprising.

While terrorism is still a relatively new concept to American’s, 9/11 was our initiation, and nods to  the Ft. Hood attack and a few failed attempts, most of us still walk the streets feeling relatively safe from terrorist attacks. However, the nations that comprise the EU, have been dealing with this issue for a long time, and they tend to approach it differently.

When the Madrid train bombings and the London bus and subway bombings occurred, the EU didn’t spend billions of dollars implementing screening checkpoints at all rail stations and subway stops. They stepped up law enforcement patrols and intensified their intelligence gathering and interdiction in the field. Then Europeans went about their business with the realization that there are risks in this world and being killed in a terrorist attack is one of many.

I’m not saying that you just accept terrorist threats as a risk of life and do nothing. However, part of any balanced approach to security is realizing that the elimination of all risk is impossible, and attempting to make anything 100% secure, achieves the very objectives of the people that are attacking us.

As George Friedman discusses in his newest book, The Next Decade (Doubleday 2011), terrorism generates fear, helplessness and rage, and transforms public opinion, which then demands a response from the government (p.77). In the past decade, this has cost a lot of money and steadily eroded a civil right here or there.

“The terrorist’s goal is to be treated as a significant threat when in fact he isn’t one…his ultimate goal is to be taken as an enormous, indeed singular threat. This creates the foundation for the political process the terrorist wants to initiate,” (Friedman, p73).

The ongoing terrorist attacks throughout the world and the continued targeting of the U.S. and particularly aviation, must be addressed with a measure of temperance so that we don’t end up destroying the industry ourselves.

The partial raising of the liquid ban, seems to be an attempt to regain some of the lost economic ground the resulted after the 2006 liquid bomb plot. Understandably, the trade associations have been active in pushing the ban, despite heavy opposition from numerous airports throughout the EU, and the U.S. TSA.

One major challenge the ban faces is the lack of harmony between the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) worldwide aviation security standards, and the U.S. aviation security standards. In ten years, we still aren’t in sync with each other, with some practices throughout the world being significantly more invasive than in the U.S., and in other areas, significantly weaker.

It’s time for the U.S. and ICAO to get back on the same page. It’s too early to entirely lift the liquid ban, but based on the fact that this reduction seems to only affect liquids purchased at the airport (or an airport) reduces the risk that the liquids contain explosives, save for the ever present risk of a hole in the employee screening and vendor and catering screening processes, which could allow an insider to smuggle a liquid explosive through anyway. But we’re not talking about those layers of security – here.

Body imager fails to detect firearm

2011 February 22 by leadingedgestrategies

Is Twitter to be blamed for the failure of screeners to detect a gun, five times through a TSA checkpoint?

A TSA employee testing the Advanced Imaging Technology (i.e. body scanner) at DFW was able to smuggle a firearm through the AIT’s on five separate occasions without being detected.

Click here for NBC story.

It’s still too early to tell what went wrong. It has not been made public just what element of the system failed. Did the technology fail to present the image properly? Did the technology fail to identify the threat item and highlight it, or did the screener miss it? We don’t know but these are all valid questions that must be asked and answered.

Possibly, the TSA tester wanted to try a new method of concealment – a method that was not previously attempted during the initial testing the imager went through at the TSA’s System Integration Facility (TSIF), before being deployed. Again, another important question to answer.

One issue is that individuals who go through the body imager do not usually go through the metal detector, which would have likely been triggered by the gun. It’s ironical that the technology that is supposed to replace the old school metal detector failed to detect the very thing it’s predecessor was designed to detect.

It’s too early to say that technology failed us. And it’s too early to say that screener training failed us. What it’s not to early to say is that aviation security needs to remain a system of layers, that is not 100% reliant upon a single point of failure. The TSA tester should have been identified through behavior detection, travel document check, pre-screening or some other mechanism before getting to the checkpoint.

Unfortunately, as noted (oddly enough) in a book title Brain Rules for Baby, author John Medina notes that social networking is making the human race less capable of detecting the non-visual cues that have been our baseline survival tool for the past several thousand years. So maybe this was a human failure. Blame Twitter.

Do you trust that we’re going the right direction?

2011 February 19 by leadingedgestrategies

The TSA recently announced that it is moving forward with two programs to improve aviation security, Trusted Traveler and a better system of checking on passengers before they can fly. I believe these are two steps in the right direction.

In a recent USAToday editorial, the paper disagreed based on the fact that the programs have not worked in the past. However, the previous trusted traveler programs were not implemented the way they were supposed to be – they were set up to fail from the beginning.

It is interesting how we do this in the U.S. We take a great process and drain all of the benefit, then implement some impotent form of it, but we still call it the same thing, then we’re surprised when it doesn’t work.

USAToday claims that the first time Trusted Traveler was tried Congress railed against the program and killed it. The second time, the program was called Registered Traveler and resulted only in front-of-the-line privileges with no actual reduction in any security processes.

Here’s the real story.

Included in the Aviation & Transportation Security Act of 2001, was the Trusted Traveler program. The intent of the program was to allow certain travelers who submitted to in-depth background checks and submission of biometric information, in exchange for less screening. However, with TSA’s early stumbles, the agency quickly decided that they didn’t trust anyone and the program should be called Registered Traveler and that there would be no lessening of the screening process.

Airport’s and private companies made a go of it anyway, banking that frequent flyers would pay just for the right to get to the front of the line – and they were right to a certain extent. The airlines initially didn’t jump on board with RT, claiming that their frequent flyer preferred lines did the same thing. Clear, the company that rolled out the first RT programs, went under a few years ago, but has now resurfaced, and personally, I’m enjoying the privilege – particularly after spending 30 minutes in the frequent flyer line a few weeks ago.

Interestingly, the government still wanted all the background information and submission of biometric data to be in the RT, but you still underwent the same security process as everyone else – in fact, that way the program worked out is that RT members pay for the privilege of being the most vetted and screened passenger on the plane.

TSA Administrator Pistole however has resurrected the original intent of the program.

Previously, the hue and cry about Trusted Traveler didn’t just come from the politicians and TSA, it came from non-frequent flyers who cried that everyone should be forced to go through the entire process. But think about this – if a program is established where individuals submit to very in-depth background checks in exchange for less screening, screening lines for non-frequent flyers would get shorter and would move faster. Plus, from an aviation security perspective, we would be narrowing the haystack down so we’re looking through less hay for the evasive needle.

There is always the argument about the so called “clean” terrorist – someone who is not on the grid, has no criminal background, and no record with law enforcement could become a trusted traveler and then have an easier time smuggling a weapon or bomb on board a plane. Remember that aviation security is a system of layers. While most of the general public thinks that the screening process IS the entire aviation security program, it’s not. Plus, the screening process is not perfect, and there are other areas of weaknesses where individuals could penetrate the system, such as catering, vendor deliveries and employees. While there are security processes in place in each of those areas as well, there is no 100% solution to all of this. The only way to completely protect aircraft from terrorism is to park all the planes.

Pilot You Tube Videos Revealed. . . what?

2010 December 27 by leadingedgestrategies

This story is getting a lot of play this week. I’ve heard that this pilot has been called everything from a hero to a whistleblower, and his attorney is equally enjoying his own celebrity. Just recently his attorney offered to make his client available to consult with Congress on aviation security.

Time to offer some reality.

First, I don’t know who the pilot is. Second, taking away his gun and credentials to carry concealed and be a Federal Flight Deck Officer is beyond my call. Like ALL stories, there are probably details here that we’re not hearing about. I can say that off-hand, it appears that the pilot violated certain items that are either Sensitive Security Information, or through his methods of attempting to reveal security “gaps,” he has demonstrated to the authorities that he may not be able to be trusted with other SSI materials and data.

As for what he revealed and his hero status and potential to brief Congress. From what I can tell, a “gap” was not revealed. The fact that many airport and airline employees do not undergo screening like passengers do, is not an industry secret. It’s been going on since about the time that screening for passengers was implemented. It IS a controversial topic, but there are not easy solutions.

I addressed this issue in Practical Aviation Security. While many employees that work at the airport do go through screening, thousands still do not — at least not in the way that passengers do. In the U.S. employee “screening,” is conducted through the fingerprint-based criminal history record check. Yes, we decide to do a background check on employees, then we trust them. The same type of screening that many security experts have been calling for, in lieu of touching junk and being x-rayed.

That said, several significant aviation security attacks were conducted by employees so the problem clearly still exists. I don’t know that sending hundreds of thousands of employees through checkpoints will resolve that issue. It will certainly cost A LOT MORE MONEY and TSA would have to hire tens of thousands of employees to staff the new checkpoints. Or, TSA could decide that employee screening is the purview of the airport operator, and declare an unfunded mandate that airports install their own employee checkpoints and staff them with contract personnel. This is exactly what’s happening at Miami and Orlando, where employees are screened at checkpoints, in addition to the background check. However, these airports are paying for it themselves.

TSA has run pilot programs on various employee screening options and I agree that this is an area that remains weak in terms of the layered system. However, the “hero” pilot has not revealed anything new here. I know from reading plenty of congressional testimony in my book research that Congress is already aware of this fact. If you want a pilot to address Congress about aviation security issues, then I suggest you contact the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). ALPA has a great team with excellent security backgrounds and can put the proper perspective on this issue.

I’m sure the pilot who shot these videos (many of which just show the public areas of an airport), had good intentions. However, if you really want to make security safer, get involved with your trade associations and union security committees. I think you’ll find some folks there with a wealth of knowledge who can help you address your concerns, so at least you can keep your credentials and gun.

Don’t touch my junk…

2010 November 16 by leadingedgestrategies

The National Opt Out Day, where passengers are encouraged to avoid the body imaging devices at airports and elect to do the pat-down procedure, will fail in causing long lines at airports. But it will succeed in attracting attention to the issue. Unfortunately, this could also be a ‘win’ for the bad guys.

It will fail because the day before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest air travel days of the year, usually, second only to the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Many passengers on those days are leisure travelers, many with kids — they are not experienced at moving through the system, which means they are slow. They will not want to spend an hour in a security line, then spend another hour waiting in the opt-out line, when they can quickly walk through the metal detector or body imager and make their flight.

However, the Opt Out Day is already a win for those individuals opposed to the screening methods, both pat down and body imaging. It is a win because it has become part of the national conversation. It made USAToday (Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano has addressed the issue twice in as many days), and garnered the attention of the networks.

It is also a small victory for the bad guys. If passengers, who are clearly not a threat, decide to opt out of the quicker security procedures, they will draw attention to themselves, rather than the people that really deserve higher scrutiny.

The solution to the problem: common sense. We need technological methods to screen individuals and their bags to ensure they are not carrying weapons and explosives. We also need alternative procedures when the technology does not work, or when individuals are opposed to its use. The problem right now is that we’ve eliminated common sense when it comes to deciding who is deserving of higher scrutiny and how that individual should be screened.

We are treating everyone as a threat, rather than weeding those out that we are reasonably certain are not threats and focusing on the others we know less about. We’re trying to come up with better technologies to “screen” the haystack, rather than reducing the size of the haystack.

The answer goes back to behavior detection. GAO says it doesn’t work and they are probably right. The TSA’s program was rolled out too soon — it wasn’t ready for prime time. It was a quick win for the Administration at the time, but it’s time to go back and fix the model.

In the meantime, the Federal Security Director in this video is dead on right. We need to evaluate the totality of the circumstance and make a risk assessment. The TSA and airports already do this when there is a potential security breach and the individual cannot be found. At some point, the decision is made to continue the operation of the airport, aircraft or checkpoint based on a risk assessment.

TSA personnel should have the flexibility to make simple risk assessments so that we’re not having our children and ourselves subjected to embarrassing and possibly illegal searches.  We’ve hired some sharp people at the field level – it’s time to let them exercise discretion and good judgement and stop hamstringing them with ridiculous, inflexible policies.

It’s finally gone too far

2010 November 4 by leadingedgestrategies

If you’re not aware of the ramifications of TSA’s new pat-down policy, click here. If the link is still active, what you likely saw was a TSA screener appearing to conduct a pat down search of a a small boy. Yea, I know it looks like he’s feeling him up, but according to our government this is a necessary process to protect the flying public.

Okay, it’s now officially gone too far. I of all people understand that kids, women, the developmentally disabled, and the elderly have all been used to smuggle bombs, carry bombs, or other criminal or terrorist purposes, but there is a much BETTER way to do this. There is a process we can use that with one look, would have told the screener that that particular kid is not a threat.

First, let’s look at the options for screening individuals, then you can determine (or weigh in if you disagree) as to what the best method(s) are.

Since the 1970s, passengers have passed through walk-thru metal detectors. We know they don’t detect explosives, so what are our other options? There are basically 6 options for screening people for explosives: (1) body imagers, (2) portal trace detectors, (3) behavior detection, (4) physical pat downs, (5) electronic screening of passenger information prior to boarding – i.e. TSA’s Secure Flight but at a much higher level, and (6) thorough background checks on passengers.

Keep in mind that privacy rights groups have issues with ALL of these methods. Sorry, can’t make everyone happy – my goal is to not have to give up a ton of rights either, but also to make sure I can safely board a plane with my family without having my kids molested in the process. And to be fair, I’m sure most TSA screeners don’t look forward to patting down the general public anymore than we want to be patted down. I’m not pointing the finger at them (unless you touch my kid!), I’m pointing at this policy that needs serious review.

Let’s back out items 5 and 6 right now. While they can be effective, pretty much only so as a layer, not a process that you’d bet your life on.

That leaves us with body imaging, portal trace (known as the Puffers), behavior detection and pat-down.

Body imagers come with privacy issues, they are slower than walk-thru metal detectors, but they are quicker than pat-down, less physically intrusive and the imagery is viewed remotely (I’m sure you can see yourself on YouTube later though — even though we’ve been told these machines do not store images, it’s now been shown that they do — but who cares, it’s not like anyone can identify you with that fuzzy image). They are effective at detecting most threat objects including explosives, guns and knives.

Portal trace detectors were rolled out after two Chechan suicide bombers brought down 2 Russian airliners in 2004. Keep in mind this wasn’t the first time a suicide airliner bombing had occurred, but it was the first time the government really took notice. The “puffers” as they were called were slow, had a high breakdown rate and you still had to go through the metal detector because they don’t detect metal, like guns and knives. The puffers were pulled out of airports due to their breakdown rate and to make room for the deployment of the body imagers.

Pat-down: the most intrusive, embarrassing process you can subject the individual too. Not only passengers, but airline and airport employees must go through this with even more frequency. It takes longer than any of the other processes and comes with all sorts of bad implications. I’m sure some child molester, after seeing the LA times photo, ran to find the nearest TSA application.

Behavior detection: non-intrusive, highly effective when done properly, takes the smallest amount of time of all of the processes. The problems here go back to the old “profiling” argument – that people are being selected based on race or nationality. This argument is as old as law enforcement itself. The other challenge here is a GAO report released earlier this year that showed that TSA’s BDO’s failed to spot potential terrorists that passed through U.S. airports. TSA points to the fact that many people have been arrested based on BDO detection, but for outstanding warrants, illegal immigrant status, or something other than terrorism.

The debate rages on as to whether this process is effective but I wholeheartedly believe in it. Here’s why: The Israeli’s relied on it so heavily that for a period of time they relied more on their security questioning/behavior process than physical screening equipment. The U.K. has adopted a similar model and is already reporting successes. This type of process is also what stopped an individual from blowing up an El Al flight departing Heathrow in 1986, whereas tons of stuff gets through technology based checkpoints every day.

So what are we doing wrong here and how can we implement something that works and keeps screeners from feeling us up at the checkpoints?

First, some reality with respect to the GAO report. Maybe the bad guys who came through U.S. airports didn’t encounter any BDO’s. With some 800,000 million passengers going through U.S. airports and only about 3,000 BDO’s it’s possible that they just missed each other. Or, maybe the bad guys had no ill intent that day they were at the airport, and thus exhibited no signs. Remember, it’s very difficult to measure something like deterrence — it’s difficult to know if a deterrent measure resulted in the bad guys saying “we don’t want to go that way because of . . .” Unfortunately, the bad guys don’t often call us and let us know when some measure we’ve implemented actually deterred them.

Second, we have to look at why these programs are successful everywhere else but here. The science of this is dubious and to being a researcher myself, I agree…to some extent. I think body language psychology is more art than science. Ever watch the TV poker tournaments? The entire process is based on two things, knowledge of statistics (playing the game well) and “reading” your opponent. When science is having problems proving things, I fall back to the old adage and ask, does it work anyway? If it works, then there must be something to it, and we just haven’t figured out the science behind it yet. However, there has been recent movements towards using technology to detect deception. Again, the old argument that we will be “saved” by technology, but just remember that the studies on the effectiveness of technology is often conducted by the companies interested in selling the technology.

Third, when I talk about the use of behavior detection, I’m not talking about the exclusive use of that strategy. Initial passenger screening should begin with the booking of the ticket — do a name check. If they’re a bad guy, arrest them, if they are a suspect, give them additional scrutiny when they get to the airport. At the airport, behavior detection should take over in the form of officers at the queue lines, talking to passengers. This process will have to be refined because there is a big gap between what a BDO suspects and what a cop can do about it. Plus, it seems the training can be better — let’s analyze what others are doing and see where we’ve potentially watered down the process here.

Then, individuals who either through their travel documentation or behavior that exhibit warning signs, should be given secondary screening, to include explosive trace detection, body imaging, or if they do not want to be “imaged” then private pat down screening.

Using this process effectively, we’ll start focusing on the bad guys and quit molesting kids at the checkpoint, in the “name” of security.