I’m sure most of remember Spot. “See Spot run!”, Dick said to Sally and Jane. Ahhh, the good old days! Well, this isn’t about that Spot, although we do see this SPOT run! See SPOT run off with our tax dollars!
The TSA has a program called SPOT. It was created in 2006 by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Currently SPOT has more than 3,000 "Behavior Detection" officers in 161 airports throughout the USA.
This program cost US taxpayers nearly $200 million in 2009, and in 2010 the TSA has asked Congress for an additional $20 million to expand the program.
SPOT training consists of four, that’s right, FOUR days of classroom instruction of behavior detection. Over this four day training you are taught how to “SPOT” certain unusual behaviors in people.
Once you have completed this four days of training, you have roughly 30 seconds to look at a person and determine if they are acting in an unusual way. In that 30 seconds you need to look for unique facial expressions and the body language that may identify that person as a potential threat, all inside of 30 seconds. If find it pretty amazing that our government is able to train anyone to do much more than steal your money or freedoms in four days. But that’s just me. According to the TSA, this program is a “vital layer” of security, “based on science”. As a matter of fact, they claim that to date, SPOT has resulted in over 1,700 arrests for “illegal activities”, although none of the arrests were of terrorists or suspected terrorists. The TSA makes it sound like this SPOT program is a really good use of our tax dollars, but they don’t have much to say about a report released in May 2010 in which the GAO found that at least 17 known terrorists have traveled through at least 23 U.S. airports that utilize the SPOT program, without being detected.
According to an ABC article, see link below, states "The scientific research shows that it's very hard to detect whether somebody's up to no good just by looking at their behavior," said Dr. Maria Hartwig, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and an expert in the psychology of deception and its detection. Now the TSA claims that SPOT program is based "in science" used by law enforcement and the military "for decades”. Dr. Hartwig said there is no such credible, peer-reviewed science and "There is no scientific support for this system as of now”.
The TSA added that the only problems with this program are due to lack of funding, which limits the number of officers and the length of training.
So is the TSA saying that no arrests of terrorists and the reason 17 know terrorists were able to travel through 23 airports is because they need more money? Sounds like a huge crock of shit to me!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/19/eveningnews/main6500349.shtml
No comments:
Post a Comment