The Transportation Security Administration is actively testing its new Israeli-style interrogation program at Boston’s Logan Airport. The new screening method is part of the TSA’s SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Technique) initiative that began in 2001, encompasses the TSA’s BDOs (Behavior Detection Officers), and costs taxpayers $212 million each year. Here is all you need to know about the new “chat-down” program:
From May 2004 to August 2008, 2 billion people boarded aircraft at SPOT airports and 152,000 were referred for secondary questioning, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in May 2010. About 14,000 passengers were referred to law enforcement officers and 1,100 were arrested during that period.
Rather than charging anyone with terrorism, the SPOT detentions included 427 arrests of undocumented immigrants, 209 for outstanding warrants, 166 for fraudulent documents and 125 for drug possession.
Meanwhile, GAO checked 16 people who had been charged in six terrorist plots during that period and found they had passed unhindered at least 23 times through eight airports where SPOT officers worked.
Despite their longings otherwise, the TSA is not a law-enforcement body and I have grave reservations with them detaining people who are merely traveling internally within the United States. If passengers do not set off the metal detector and their bags are cleared—they should be cleared to fly immediately.
Billions of dollars later, we have 1,100 arrests, none for terrorism, while 16 suspected terrorists were able to get by SPOT officers undetected. In other words, we have a failed program that will potentially be expanded across the country. Why?
One reason is because we have sheep like Ingrid Esser, who told USA Today:
It doesn’t bother me at all. I understand their job, and it’s keeping America safe.
The public, and often the very people rabidly raving about soaring U.S. deficits, supports these expensive measures under the mistaken belief that they play a vital role in keeping Americans safer. The facts suggest otherwise.
Second, and I hate to be crass but I defy anyone to prove otherwise, the bloated TSA workforce has to be kept busy. This program keeps more of them moving, providing a justification for their employment.
At least for now, passengers can “opt out” of “chat-downs.” If they do (and I will), carry-on bags will be thoroughly searched. Actually, if I ever travel through an airport with SPOT officers questioning passengers, I plan to turn the tables and begin a rapid fire interrogation of the TSO interviewing me. And it will be personal too. If they can ask me how much money I am carrying and why I am traveling to Los Angeles, I can ask them why they are working for America’s second most hated government agency (behind the IRS), how exactly this program is keeping America safer, and whether they like movies about gladiators.
As security lines become longer, with interrogations and full body scanners to slow us down even more, the real threats will continue to slip by undetected. Mission accomplished.
One possibly inaccurate aspect of your post – hasn’t the TSA surpassed the IRS for most hated gov’t agency? It has for me 🙂
Two comments: it would be good to document the source of the first block of information (“From May 2004…); and the total number of arrests listed there are 1,100, not the 427 you use later
@Biggles209: Thanks for noting my typo–I have updated the number of arrests. The quote comes from the USA Today story linked to early in the post.
TSA is nothing more than a jobs program for unemployable misfits trying to create an illusion of airline security. This program is just another excuse for TSA to harass and delay innocent passengers without having to demonstrate any tangible benefit.
Last week one of these “professionals” was arrested in Maryland for possession of child pornography. Another was arrested this week for drug smuggling at LAX. This is the fourth screener charged with smuggling drugs through security the last six months.
These drugs could just as well have been weapons or explosives carried aboard by a terrorist or intentionally planted in passenger baggage. The nine TSA screeners arrested for child sex crimes this year could have easily been coerced by terrorists into cooperating in order to conceal their crimes.
There have been 56 TSA screeners arrested so far this year, a rate of one very six days. Of these, nine are charged with sex crimes involving children and four with helping to smuggle drugs through security. Of course, these screeners didn’t know for sure whether the contraband was drugs or explosives.
So while TSA workers may take bribes that ultimately allow a bomb on a plane, you can be sure that there won’t be any four ounce containers getting past them. It is long past time to demand a complete overhaul of this agency or its elimination entirely.
TSA Crimes & Abuses
http://www.travelunderground.org/index.php?threads/master-lists-of-tsa-abuses-crimes.317/