I fly six to eight times a year and I very much appreciate vigilant law enforcement at airports. I’ve found TSA agents to be terse but not rude. That said, I find it troubling that this country spends $200 million a year on an airport surveillance program that shows dubious results. They’re called Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs), and as the Wall Street Journal reports, they walk around looking for suspicious behavior.
The Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, concluded in a recent report there is no credible evidence that TSA’s behavior-detection program, which costs about $200 million a year, is effective. Scientific studies in general show human ability to identify deceptive behavior without conversation is at best only slightly better than 50-50 chance, the November report said. GAO urged Congress to cut back funding.
The GAO also logged the results:
Nationwide, the GAO said BDOs averaged 1.6 referrals over 160 hours worked. But that rate varied significantly between airports, GAO found, ranging from 0 to 26 referrals per 160 hours. “Subjectivity and variation raise questions about continued use of behavioral indicators,” GAO said.
Just imagine being the lawmaker who tries to cut back this program. He/she is likely to be accused of not caring about safety. But if a program has only a 50% chance of being effective, shouldn’t we redirect funds to something more effective? The TSA is reportedly looking at all this.
