THREATS IN AVIATION

TERRORIST BEHAVIOR CHECKLIST 


Watchdog: TSA Lacks Evidence to Justify Behavior Detection Patrols - The Voyage Report

As we all know, terrorist attack is one of the biggest threat aviation has faced for a long time. This week I will be talking about some Behaviors that our Transport Security Administration (TSA) consider suspicious. Some of the common signs are fidgeting, whistling, sweaty palms, arrogance, a cold penetrating stares and rigid posture. “The checklist is part of TSA’s controversial program to identify potential terrorist based on behaviors that it thinks indicate stress or deception-known as the Screening of Passengers by observation Techniques, or SPOT.”(Winter 2015) This program only hires special trained officers called Behavior Detection Officers. I don't know if I'm the only one who gets very nervous at the airport if I see the officers, knowing very well I'm clean.

What are some of the other criteria you may ask? Well the document that lists all the criteria is known as the Special Referral Report. The document is not classified but the TSA are pretty hesitant on releasing, until it was leaked to the Intercept magazine. When the list came out the TSA spokesman refused to talk about it. 


              Exclusive: TSA's Secret Behavior Checklist to Spot Terrorists


One of the mitigation strategy that was brought about was the Behavior Detection. This strategy has brought about a lot of controversies since it came out in 2007. This because people argued that judging someone based on how they behavior is not a very accurate way of determining if they are terrorist or up to no good. 

Reading the 92 point checklist, I also did not agree with it. “Those categories included a preliminary ‘observation and behavior analysis,’ and then the passengers pulled over for additional inspection are scored based on two more categories: whether they have ‘unusual items’.” (Winter 2015)  I don’t agree to this strategy since it can bring a lot of racial profiling and also culture profiling which I don’t think is very fair. 

A way they can improve is training the Behavior officers properly and actually follow the signs instead of singling someone due to their race or culture. This can go a long way in actually catching the bad guys.


REFERENCES

Winter, J (2015, March 27) The Intercept. Exclusive: TSA'S Secret Behavior Checklist to Spot Terrorist. https://theintercept.com/2015/03/27/revealed-tsas-closely-held-behavior-checklist-spot-terrorists/

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