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TSA [Gestapo] security looks at people who complain about ... TSA[Gestapo] security



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 18th, 2011, 08:59 PM posted to misc.survivalism,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.california,alt.security.terrorism,rec.travel.air
DCI[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default TSA [Gestapo] security looks at people who complain about ... TSA[Gestapo] security

On Apr 18, 8:24*am, "Leroy N. Soetoro"
wrote:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15...ners.complain/

Washington (CNN) -- Don't like the way airport screeners are doing their
job? You might not want to complain too much while standing in line.

Arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator
Transportation Security Administration officers consider when looking for
possible criminals and terrorists, CNN has learned exclusively. And, when
combined with other behavioral indicators, it could result in a traveler
facing additional scrutiny.

CNN has obtained a list of roughly 70 "behavioral indicators" that TSA
behavior detection officers use to identify potentially "high risk"
passengers at the nation's airports.

Many of the indicators, as characterized in open government reports, are
behaviors and appearances that may be indicative of stress, fear or
deception. None of them, as the TSA has long said, refer to or suggest
race, religion or ethnicity.

But one addresses passengers' attitudes towards security, and how they
express those attitudes.

It reads: "Very arrogant and expresses contempt against airport passenger
procedures."

TSA officials declined to comment on the list of indicators, but said that
no single indicator, taken by itself, is ever used to identify travelers
as potentially high-risk passengers. Travelers must exhibit several
indicators before behavior detection officers steer them to more thorough
screening.

But a civil liberties organization said the list should not include
behavior relating to the expression of opinions, even arrogant expressions
of opinion.

"Expressing your contempt about airport procedures -- that's a First
Amendment-protected right," said Michael German, a former FBI agent who
now works as legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We all
have the right to express our views, and particularly in a situation where
the government is demanding the ability to search you."

"It's circular reasoning where, you know, I'm going to ask someone to
surrender their rights; if they refuse, that's evidence that I need to
take their rights away from them. And it's simply inappropriate," he said..

The TSA says its security programs are informed by real-world situations
and intelligence. Indeed, the immigration agent who refused to let the
alleged "20th hijacker" into the United States in 2001 later testified
that the man's arrogant behavior contributed to his suspicions.

Agent Jose Melendez-Perez told the 9/11 commission that Mohammed al-
Qahtani "became visibly upset" and arrogantly pointed his finger in the
agent's face when asked why he did not have an airline ticket for a return
flight.

But some experts say terrorists are much more likely to avoid
confrontations with authorities, saying an al Qaeda training manual
instructs members to blend in.

"I think the idea that they would try to draw attention to themselves by
being arrogant at airport security, it fails the common sense test," said
CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen. "And it also fails what we
know about their behaviors in the past."

The 9/11 commission's report says that "none of the checkpoint supervisors
(on September 11th) recalled the (successful) hijackers or reported
anything suspicious regarding their screening."

But, it says, an airline ticket agent that checked in hijacker Mohammed
Atta says Atta "reacted negatively when informed in Portland (Maine) that
he would have to check in again in Boston." Atta "clenched his jaw and
said ... with some irritation, 'They told me one step check-in,'" he
recalled. The ticket agent recommended the United States hire "behavior
profilers ... the way they do overseas," the report says.

Rafi Ron, former director of security at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion
International Airport, said an arrogant complaint about security is a
legitimate factor to consider. But officials also should be suspicious of
effusive praise, he said.

"The other end of the spectrum is almost as bad, although it is maybe less
offensive," he said.

The TSA is expanding the behavior detection program, formally known as
SPOT, for Screening Passengers by Observation Technique.

Currently, some 3,000 uniformed behavior detection officers are deployed
at about 175 airports. President Obama is calling for an additional 175
such officers in his 2012 budget proposal, and the TSA is expected to
spend a total of $1.2 billion on the program over the next five years.

In recent years, the TSA has also expanded the scope of the program.
Originally intended to look only for suspected terrorists, the program now
also seeks to ferret out possible criminals in airports.

Many details of the program are publicly available. According to a
Government Accountability Office report, uniformed behavior detection
officers typically work in two-person teams at airport checkpoint lines,
looking for behaviors that are on the SPOT checklist, each of which is
assigned a numerical value.

The officers sometimes initiate casual conversations with passengers,
particularly if a passenger is exhibiting behaviors on the SPOT checklist..

In most instances, the Accountability Office said, the conversation
resolves the suspicion.

But if both behavior detection officers agree that observed indicators
exceed a predetermined numerical threshold, the person is referred to
additional screening, which can involve more questioning and physical
searches of a person or property.

If the person's behavior escalates, accumulating more points based on the
SPOT checklist, the officers can refer the person to local law enforcement
for investigation. After the law enforcement investigation, the TSA
officials determine whether to allow the passenger to board the flight.

The Department of Homeland Security says the program is successful,
telling Congress last week that, in a recent test comparing behavior
detection officers to random screening procedures, the officers were 50
times more likely to refer people they checked to local law enforcement,
and about 4.5 times as likely to identify people with prohibited items or
fraudulent documents.

Taken together, such officers are nine times more likely to identify "high
risk" passengers than random screening, the department said.

"SPOT identifies high-risk travelers at a significantly higher rate then
random screening," Larry Willis of the department's Science and Technology
Directorate testified.

But one member of the study's Technical Advisory Committee said the study
did not establish the program's scientific validity.

"The advisory committee has not been asked to evaluate the overall SPOT
program, nor has it been asked to evaluate the validity of indicators used
in the program," Philip Rubin testified to Congress last week.

Advisory committee members were not shown the list of behavioral
indicators, he said.

"My concern is that if I'm a member of the public and I hear (Willis')
testimony, it sounds like the SPOT program has been validated," Rubin told
CNN.

He said that while large numbers of people were screened, very little
criminal activity was detected, and the numbers may not be statistically
significant. "The hit rate is so low on this, it could turn out to be a
random glitch," he said.

The Government Accountability Office also criticized the study, saying
TSA's records are incomplete and the study is not designed to answer the
big question people have about the program: Does it work?

The study "is not designed to fully validate whether behavior detection
can be used to reliably identify individuals in an airport environment who
pose a security risk," the agency said.

Members of Congress also expressed concern about the number of "false
positives" -- people flagged for additional screening that resulted in
nothing being found. For every person correctly identified as a "high
risk" traveler by (the behavior detection officers), 86 were
misidentified, Willis said. At random screening, for every person
correctly identified, 794 were misidentified.

The TSA does not track the number of arrests, convictions or exonerations
of people that are referred to law enforcement, he said.

The ACLU's German, who has not seen the behavioral indicators list, said
he fears the indicators "are being used simply as a proxy for racial
profiling or other inappropriate police activities." The number of people
arrested at airport checkpoints for immigration violations suggests the
behavior detection officers are profiling, he said.

Thirty-nine percent of the 1,083 people arrested during the first four and
a half years of the program were arrested because they were illegal
aliens, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Experts agree that the fact that there is an extremely small number of
terrorists makes it hard to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral
observation programs. The Accountability Office said it looked at 23
occasions in which 16 individuals -- people later charged with terrorism-
related activities -- passed through high-threat airports. None is known
to have been identified. But it is not known if the behavior detection
officers were working at the time, the agency said.

Stephen Lord of the Accountability Office is recommending the TSA study
airport videos of those instances.

"We believe such recordings could help identify behaviors that may be
common among terrorists, or could demonstrate that terrorists do not
generally display any identifying behaviors," Lord said.


But, but, but the TSA and Homeland Security says they're keeping us
safe.

DCI
  #2  
Old April 18th, 2011, 09:12 PM posted to misc.survivalism,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.california,alt.security.terrorism,rec.travel.air
Too_Many_Tools
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13
Default TSA [Gestapo] security looks at people who complain about ... TSA[Gestapo] security

On Apr 18, 2:59*pm, DCI wrote:
On Apr 18, 8:24*am, "Leroy N. Soetoro"
wrote:





http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15...ners.complain/


Washington (CNN) -- Don't like the way airport screeners are doing their
job? You might not want to complain too much while standing in line.


Arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator
Transportation Security Administration officers consider when looking for
possible criminals and terrorists, CNN has learned exclusively. And, when
combined with other behavioral indicators, it could result in a traveler
facing additional scrutiny.


CNN has obtained a list of roughly 70 "behavioral indicators" that TSA
behavior detection officers use to identify potentially "high risk"
passengers at the nation's airports.


Many of the indicators, as characterized in open government reports, are
behaviors and appearances that may be indicative of stress, fear or
deception. None of them, as the TSA has long said, refer to or suggest
race, religion or ethnicity.


But one addresses passengers' attitudes towards security, and how they
express those attitudes.


It reads: "Very arrogant and expresses contempt against airport passenger
procedures."


TSA officials declined to comment on the list of indicators, but said that
no single indicator, taken by itself, is ever used to identify travelers
as potentially high-risk passengers. Travelers must exhibit several
indicators before behavior detection officers steer them to more thorough
screening.


But a civil liberties organization said the list should not include
behavior relating to the expression of opinions, even arrogant expressions
of opinion.


"Expressing your contempt about airport procedures -- that's a First
Amendment-protected right," said Michael German, a former FBI agent who
now works as legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We all
have the right to express our views, and particularly in a situation where
the government is demanding the ability to search you."


"It's circular reasoning where, you know, I'm going to ask someone to
surrender their rights; if they refuse, that's evidence that I need to
take their rights away from them. And it's simply inappropriate," he said.


The TSA says its security programs are informed by real-world situations
and intelligence. Indeed, the immigration agent who refused to let the
alleged "20th hijacker" into the United States in 2001 later testified
that the man's arrogant behavior contributed to his suspicions.


Agent Jose Melendez-Perez told the 9/11 commission that Mohammed al-
Qahtani "became visibly upset" and arrogantly pointed his finger in the
agent's face when asked why he did not have an airline ticket for a return
flight.


But some experts say terrorists are much more likely to avoid
confrontations with authorities, saying an al Qaeda training manual
instructs members to blend in.


"I think the idea that they would try to draw attention to themselves by
being arrogant at airport security, it fails the common sense test," said
CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen. "And it also fails what we
know about their behaviors in the past."


The 9/11 commission's report says that "none of the checkpoint supervisors
(on September 11th) recalled the (successful) hijackers or reported
anything suspicious regarding their screening."


But, it says, an airline ticket agent that checked in hijacker Mohammed
Atta says Atta "reacted negatively when informed in Portland (Maine) that
he would have to check in again in Boston." Atta "clenched his jaw and
said ... with some irritation, 'They told me one step check-in,'" he
recalled. The ticket agent recommended the United States hire "behavior
profilers ... the way they do overseas," the report says.


Rafi Ron, former director of security at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion
International Airport, said an arrogant complaint about security is a
legitimate factor to consider. But officials also should be suspicious of
effusive praise, he said.


"The other end of the spectrum is almost as bad, although it is maybe less
offensive," he said.


The TSA is expanding the behavior detection program, formally known as
SPOT, for Screening Passengers by Observation Technique.


Currently, some 3,000 uniformed behavior detection officers are deployed
at about 175 airports. President Obama is calling for an additional 175
such officers in his 2012 budget proposal, and the TSA is expected to
spend a total of $1.2 billion on the program over the next five years.


In recent years, the TSA has also expanded the scope of the program.
Originally intended to look only for suspected terrorists, the program now
also seeks to ferret out possible criminals in airports.


Many details of the program are publicly available. According to a
Government Accountability Office report, uniformed behavior detection
officers typically work in two-person teams at airport checkpoint lines,
looking for behaviors that are on the SPOT checklist, each of which is
assigned a numerical value.


The officers sometimes initiate casual conversations with passengers,
particularly if a passenger is exhibiting behaviors on the SPOT checklist.


In most instances, the Accountability Office said, the conversation
resolves the suspicion.


But if both behavior detection officers agree that observed indicators
exceed a predetermined numerical threshold, the person is referred to
additional screening, which can involve more questioning and physical
searches of a person or property.


If the person's behavior escalates, accumulating more points based on the
SPOT checklist, the officers can refer the person to local law enforcement
for investigation. After the law enforcement investigation, the TSA
officials determine whether to allow the passenger to board the flight.


The Department of Homeland Security says the program is successful,
telling Congress last week that, in a recent test comparing behavior
detection officers to random screening procedures, the officers were 50
times more likely to refer people they checked to local law enforcement,
and about 4.5 times as likely to identify people with prohibited items or
fraudulent documents.


Taken together, such officers are nine times more likely to identify "high
risk" passengers than random screening, the department said.


"SPOT identifies high-risk travelers at a significantly higher rate then
random screening," Larry Willis of the department's Science and Technology
Directorate testified.


But one member of the study's Technical Advisory Committee said the study
did not establish the program's scientific validity.


"The advisory committee has not been asked to evaluate the overall SPOT
program, nor has it been asked to evaluate the validity of indicators used
in the program," Philip Rubin testified to Congress last week.


Advisory committee members were not shown the list of behavioral
indicators, he said.


"My concern is that if I'm a member of the public and I hear (Willis')
testimony, it sounds like the SPOT program has been validated," Rubin told
CNN.


He said that while large numbers of people were screened, very little
criminal activity was detected, and the numbers may not be statistically
significant. "The hit rate is so low on this, it could turn out to be a
random glitch," he said.


The Government Accountability Office also criticized the study, saying
TSA's records are incomplete and the study is not designed to answer the
big question people have about the program: Does it work?


The study "is not designed to fully validate whether behavior detection
can be used to reliably identify individuals in an airport environment who
pose a security risk," the agency said.


Members of Congress also expressed concern about the number of "false
positives" -- people flagged for additional screening that resulted in
nothing being found. For every person correctly identified as a "high
risk" traveler by (the behavior detection officers), 86 were
misidentified, Willis said. At random screening, for every person
correctly identified, 794 were misidentified.


The TSA does not track the number of arrests, convictions or exonerations
of people that are referred to law enforcement, he said.


The ACLU's German, who has not seen the behavioral indicators list, said
he fears the indicators "are being used simply as a proxy for racial
profiling or other inappropriate police activities." The number of people
arrested at airport checkpoints for immigration violations suggests the
behavior detection officers are profiling, he said.


Thirty-nine percent of the 1,083 people arrested during the first four and
a half years of the program were arrested because they were illegal
aliens, according to the Government Accountability Office.


Experts agree that the fact that there is an extremely small number of
terrorists makes it hard to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral
observation programs. The Accountability Office said it looked at 23
occasions in which 16 individuals -- people later charged with terrorism-
related activities -- passed through high-threat airports. None is known
to have been identified. But it is not known if the behavior detection
officers were working at the time, the agency said.


Stephen Lord of the Accountability Office is recommending the TSA study
airport videos of those instances.


"We believe such recordings could help identify behaviors that may be
common among terrorists, or could demonstrate that terrorists do not
generally display any identifying behaviors," Lord said.


But, but, but the TSA and Homeland Security says they're keeping us
safe.

DCI- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Another tell the TSA uses to screen for is endless posting of
conservative rants against the Government on Usenet, Facebook and
popular right wing sites.

Crosschecking right wing postings to addresses is a very good tell as
to who one needs extra "screening".

Gun ownership is another screening criteria that is easy to do and
results in determining who is to be further watched.

TMT
  #3  
Old April 19th, 2011, 05:09 PM posted to misc.survivalism,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.california,alt.security.terrorism,rec.travel.air
Sancho Panza[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 552
Default TSA [Gestapo] security looks at people who complain about ...TSA [Gestapo] security

On 4/18/2011 4:12 PM, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
On Apr 18, 2:59 pm, wrote:



Another tell the TSA uses to screen for is endless posting of
conservative rants against the Government on Usenet, Facebook and
popular right wing sites.

Crosschecking right wing postings to addresses is a very good tell as
to who one needs extra "screening".


Another excellent reason for anonymity.
  #4  
Old April 19th, 2011, 08:57 PM posted to misc.survivalism,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.california,alt.security.terrorism,rec.travel.air
DCI[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default TSA [Gestapo] security looks at people who complain about ... TSA[Gestapo] security

On Apr 19, 9:09*am, Sancho Panza wrote:
On 4/18/2011 4:12 PM, Too_Many_Tools wrote:

On Apr 18, 2:59 pm, *wrote:


Another tell the TSA uses to screen for is endless posting of
conservative rants against the Government on Usenet, Facebook and
popular right wing sites.


Crosschecking right wing postings to addresses is a very good tell as
to who one needs extra "screening".


Another excellent reason for anonymity.


Hey! Sancho. the attribution you've made is not my post.

DCI
  #5  
Old July 17th, 2011, 08:20 PM posted to misc.survivalism,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.california,alt.security.terrorism,rec.travel.air
hls
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 61
Default TSA [Gestapo] security looks at people who complain about ... TSA [Gestapo] security


"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
news:ea7f245b-717b-4f9b-aacb-
Another tell the TSA uses to screen for is endless posting of
conservative rants against the Government on Usenet, Facebook and
popular right wing sites.

Crosschecking right wing postings to addresses is a very good tell as
to who one needs extra "screening".
TMT

*******
Well, when you have a left wing, smelling of socialism, president, what
would
you expect his thugs to post??

  #6  
Old July 19th, 2011, 08:37 PM posted to misc.survivalism,alt.politics.liberalism,alt.california,alt.security.terrorism,rec.travel.air
Michael Ejercito
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2
Default TSA [Gestapo] security looks at people who complain about ... TSA[Gestapo] security

On Jul 18, 5:34*pm, Topaz wrote:
Here are some quotes from the book "SS Defender against Bolshevism" by
Reichsfuehrer SS *Heinrich Himmler:

They lost to Bolshevism.


Michael
 




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