Since 2007, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has spent $900 million on the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program.
SPOT involves 3,000 TSA workers profiling passengers on the basis of race, ethnicity and … get this … what may or may not be inside their brains. Specifically, SPOT hunts for “nonverbal behavioral indicators” which may be indicative of “deception.”
(Cue Twilight Zone theme music).
According to a recently released report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), though, the program doesn’t work. In fact the GAO recommends slashing funding for the program.
Armed with this information, U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) grilled TSA administrator John Pistole this week – who came to Capitol Hill to defend SPOT.
“You go through a screening system which essentially undresses somebody, you send their equipment through radar detection and other devices,” Sanford said. “The question is, from a civil liberties standpoint, given those other tests, do you in addition have to go through a screening process based on somebody’s interpretation of what might be in your brain?”
That’s an excellent point … which even Pistole was forced to acknowledge.
Sanford summed up his view of the program as “a billion dollars (spent) with no results.”
And you know what they say, “a billion here, a billion there … sooner or later we’re talking about real money.”
Anyway props to Sanford for highlighting this particular example of unnecessary government spending … and let’s hope this is money TSA stops pissing away in the future.
24 comments
TSA obviously botched up the implementation of their version of this tactic, but Israel has used it (with great success) for many years. I doubt Israel spent a billion bucks on theirs…
While US went route of sole source contract and mandated premium first edition the Israelis waited until everything was finished then picked up CliffsNotes for a few pennies on the dollar
Specifically, SPOT hunts for “nonverbal behavioral indicators” which may be indicative of “deception.”
SHIFTYNESS!!
TBG, it was an incident of “nonverbal behavior” that created Shifty Henry…
Will Folks reprises the past role he loved the most: On his knees before his old hero, Mark Sanford.
I’m sorry but Sanford lied, fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me. I believe Sanford as much as I do Obama. I have very little respect for any politician but alas they are a necessary evil in our society. The most fiscal conservative will get my vote, it’s all about the money and we can’t continue to print it forever.
Liar or not, he has a great point.
They all have great points from time to time but the debt just keeps going up, $17 trillion and climbing.
Agreed. He didn’t do it though and that wasn’t the point of the article.
Sanfraud, god do I have to see that low life’s face again. Lying POS.
One of the biggest wastes I know is the $200,000+ a year we spend supporting this nut job. Have you ever thought about how much money the taxpayers have paid to or to support this idiot over the last 20 years..
And what do we have to show for it?????? Absolutely, nothing.
Gosh, I hate it when the government tries to keep us safe by spotting terrorists or potential threats before they get on an airplane. They have no respect.
What I’d like for them to do is actually be effective at it:
http://nypost.com/2013/03/08/tsa-screeners-allow-fed-agent-with-fake-bomb-to-pass-through-security-at-newark-airport/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110913/10465415931/guy-who-created-tsa-says-its-failed-its-time-to-dismantle-it.shtml
Prior to the 9/11 hijackers, when was the last time we had a plane originating in the US hijacked?
1987- By a Muslim no less, he was unsuccessful in getting the plane off the ground. Prior to that it was 1983 (by another Muslim) where the hikcker was successful in getting the pilots to fly him from Killeen, TX to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico
.
So actually the real solution we should use is not to allow Muslim’s to be passengers on aircraft right! Look at all the money we could save and all the people we could send into looking for reemployment.
It does not make me safer to have complete strangers putting their hands down my pants and fondle my private parts. In fact, I’d argue that complete strangers getting way closer than they belong to both my belongings and my body is pretty much what I mean by a “potential threat”. What the TSA does is menace, humiliate, scream at, sexually assault, and steal from the good people of the world. Get TSA thugs out of our airports for good!
Would taking a dump in my pants while being scanned by the TSA be considered a “nonverbal behavioral indicator” that I was trying to deceive them of my need for privacy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZCEq8jy5-M
Maybe the TSA should resort to this strategy: http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/innocent-man-given-anal-cavity-search-colonoscopy-after-rolling-through-a-stop-sign/ It might help the find their damn brains – almost a billion bucks to learn to profile?!? I’d have taught them how to do it for $100,000:
If they look greasy – search them: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/25/richard.reid.shoe.bomber/
If a man is wearing a dress and his partner is a woman covered from head to toe – search them: http://www.redstate.com/snarkandboobs/2010/11/15/government-at-work-groping-children-is-preferable-to-perceived-profiling/
If it’s an old lady in a wheelchair – leave her the hell alone: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/strip-searched-grandma-says-tsa-removed-her-underwear/
Or a three year old in a wheelchair: http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/tsa-searches-3-year-old-in-wheelchair.html/comment-page-1
If they have a diaper on – leave them alone: http://nation.foxnews.com/culture/2011/05/09/tsa-searches-babys-diaper and http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/06/27/tsa-pat-down-elderly-woman-told-to-remove-adult-diaper-at-airport/
The TSA needs to be done away with, their own inspections have revealed them to be inefficient and ineffective: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/01/tsa_threat_detection
Even simpler, just offer everyone a BBQ sammich from Maurice before boarding. if they decline, they must be a mooslime terrorist.
Geez Louise Fitsy, still waiting for that wedding invite? Are you trying to get Sanford in the news with a Libertarianesque Civil Liberties reference? You should have found a sound-bite with more clarity of thought. Goodness me, if the TSA had interpreted his body language and what might have been in his noggin in 2009, AND stopped him, he might have re-thunk the whole “lightening strike” thing. Maybe that is what has got him jazzed. Unfortunately, the TSA doesn’t screen for philanderers, per se,
I don’t understand why they cannot de-fund or significantly reduce funding for TSA, DHS, and the like. DHS is still stockpiling ammo and we have so many Congressmen “looking into it”, but no action to de-fund this unnecessary and scary expenditure of tax monies.
But he was fine with shutting down the gov’t at a cost of $24 billion….”a billion here,a billion there”,after a while you’re talking real money……..fornication here,fornication there,after a while you’re talking real sin (in every Bible but Sanfords) …..Whatever works for ole Mark.
Gov’t shut down, as if the Dems didn’t want it also, yes they said they didn’t want it shut down but they also said you can keep your plan.
I’m no fan of Sanford but the one sided shut down mantra is just as bogus as Sanford.
I love this part, “do you in addition have to go through a screening process based on somebody’s interpretation of what might be in your brain?”
That’s a nice turn of phrase. You see, every time I point out that the euphemistically-named patdown is in fact a textbook sexual assault, in that an unwilling victim is coerced into allowing someone to fondle his or her genitals, I am told “oh, but it’s the intent that matters.” Well, since behavior detection (mind-reading) doesn’t work, how exactly am I supposed to know what’s going on in the screener’s brain? All I know is that a complete stranger just stuck their hands down my pants and fondled my crotch.
Two things I hate: racial profiling and Arabs on my flight.