Home > The Thought Police Have Arrived: Be Scared But Don’t Act Nervous

The Thought Police Have Arrived: Be Scared But Don’t Act Nervous

by Open-Publishing - Tuesday 22 August 2006
6 comments

Police - Repression Attack-Terrorism UK Transports

‘Spot’ teams to spy on passengers

London Times | August 21 2006

ELITE teams of security officers are to be trained to monitor passenger behaviour at airports in a new attempt to combat terrorism.

The “behaviour detection squads” will patrol terminals to monitor the gestures, conversations and facial expressions of passengers. One of their aims will be to spot those who may be concealing fear or anxiety.

People deemed to be acting suspiciously will be taken for questioning and prevented from flying if they fail to explain their actions.

UK trainers have studied the techniques in America, where behaviour detection squads are already deployed at airports.

The plan is part of an overhaul of passenger screening. Instead of solely relying on searches to uncover weapons and bombs, airport authorities are increasingly seeking to pinpoint the terrorists themselves.

In the long run, passengers flying from international hubs such as Heathrow and Gatwick could even face a lie-detector test before they board.

In America behaviour detection officers are working at a dozen airports, including Washington Dulles and Boston Logan. The programme, called Screening Passengers by Observation Technique, or Spot, is run by the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

“There are infinite ways to find things to use as a weapon and infinite ways to hide them,” said Kip Hawley, the director of the TSA. “But if you can identify the individual, it’s by far the better way to find the threat.”

Paul Ekman, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California and a leading expert on facial expressions, has been helping to train the TSA’s officers.

Earlier this year three British officials attended a three-day course run by Ekman in Vancouver. “(They were from) a branch of your government that has similar responsibilities to the TSA,” he said.

“A year earlier, we had four people participate in a five-day course. So our work with the UK has been going on for some time. It isn’t practical for us to be the trainers for the UK, so we are training the trainers.”

Ekman added that a British official had told him last week that “things are going to start moving forward now”.

The Spot teams, who are in uniform and work in pairs at US airports, use a list of more than 30 unusual behaviours against which to check passengers. Some things they look for are obvious, such as a person wearing a coat on a hot day or pacing around, but there are more subtle signs.

“They are all things that people do with their posture, with their hands, with their heads, with their voice if you can hear it and with their gestures,” said Ekman.

In particular, officers are trained to recognise concealed emotion, such as fear or anxiety. These so-called “micro-facial expressions” appear on a person’s face for 1/25th of a second. “They are so fast, that unless you’ve been trained you don’t see them,” said Ekman.

If a passenger’s behaviour gives cause for concern, the Spot officers ask a few casual questions, such as the reason for travelling.

Those who arouse further suspicion are referred to other law enforcement officers for screening, and, if found to be involved in criminality, barred from flying.

The move towards passenger profiling follows the chaos endured by travellers at British airports in the wake of the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

Although several airlines flying out of the UK, including Virgin Atlantic, employ security staff to carry out a basic form of passenger profiling, the government is thought to want a more centralised system in place.

This may lead airlines to adopt some of the practices of El Al, the Israeli carrier that pioneered profiling.

The process of checks start when a passenger books a flight, according to Isaac Yeffet, the airline’s former head of security.

Signs that trigger suspicion are buying a one-way ticket, booking at the last minute, paying in cash or buying a ticket for someone else. “I like to be waiting for someone of interest when he arrives at the airport, rather than for him to surprise me,” said Yeffet.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: “We have a layered approach to security at airports, but cannot comment further.”

Forum posts

  • Citizens are going to become so PISSED OFF at Big Brother "behavior detection squads" harrassing potential flyers and looking for any "things that people do with their posture, with their hands, with their heads" that they are simply going to QUIT flying. Isn’t this "behavior detection" how they spotted "witches" back in the medevial times, a sudden twitch, or facial gesture, or voice inflection??? This seems about as useful!!! What’s next holding passengers under water to see if they drown to porve if they are or aren’t "terrorists" What BS. UNDERSTAND. This whole "war on terror" is a charade to increase Big Brother’s Fascist power over anyone who dares to stand in the way of the "Crime Family’s" pursuit of new resources to exploit using force. It’s really that simple.

    We consumers are going to become so fed up we are going to BOYCOTT<BOYCOTT

    • This program has been working in the states and the Behavior Detection Officers have really been trained to look for real things, you will not be bothered if you have nothing to hide and chances are you won’t even know that there is a Behavior Det. officer around.

    • How exactly has the program "been working" and who exactly is paying for it? I thinks it’s best if those Neo-Con fascist followers— who want to promote more and more of a Big Brother surveilance state — stop hiding behind using "terrorism" for grabbing more MONEY and power, and simply admit they woiuld love nothing better than to constantly moniter every citizen 24/7 and send them the bill for the "service".

      And millions of people with "nothing to hide" have been persecuted and often murdered outright for thousands of years often by their own governments simply for telling the truth to power and those who would rather not hear or unfortunately having the "wrong" skin color, sex, religion, ’class’ or whatever happens to be the popular thing to persecute at the moment.

    • I am not a terrorist but I hate Behavior Detection Officers and if I see one or think one is near I will imagine horrid things happening to them, which might make me look suspicious. By the way, everyone knows that if you take propanolol or another beta blocker, you will block sweating, shaking, hypertension, and other autonomic nervous system behaviours that people are trained to detect. Duh.

      By the way, I hope your stupid bomb sniffing dogs get heartworms.

    • BIG BROTHER IS WAtching

  • Sounds like a wonderful technique employing the latest advances in psychology. Eckman is truly a genius and anyone who differs in opinion simply is not familiar with his body of work. A think this program is definately preferable to things such as racial and ethnic profiling (not that it wont undoubtedly still occur) because it focuses on traits innate in all humans rather than those that are specific i.e. not every terrorist is going to be islamic so screening will miss them in this way, but every person is subject to emotional disparities, anxiety, and seemingly compliant behavior. The guy who acts crazy doesnt scare me, its the guy thats trying hard not to look crazy that should catch your eye. Eckman’s research excels at these kind of discriminations.