Behavior Detection Plan For Airports

Josh Gerstein at Politico:

TSA already has “behavior detection officers” at 161 airports nationwide looking for travelers exhibiting physiological or psychological signs that a traveler might be a terrorist. However, Pistole said TSA is preparing to move to an approach that employs more conversation with travelers—a method that has been employed with great success in Israel.

Several reasonable people have been proposing this for years, and even more so in the light of the recent controversy around the behavior of TSA officers. I have to say one of the most comical things about this article is that Gerstein refuses to use the term behavior profiling. That is, after all, what this really is. I suppose behavior detection sounds a little less ominous.

I think behavior profiling is the only effective, scalable, and truly thorough method of airport security. However, there are still two potential problems I see with this. 1) Napolitano is still secretary of DHS. 2) If this is implemented poorly with improperly trained personnel, current issues with abusive behavior from TSA employees will actually get worse.

The most ideal situation here would be to eliminate the bumbling TSA. Allow private security firms to bid on this task at each airport around the US. Have some oversight by the local airport officials if necessary to make sure the job is getting done properly. The advantages of this scenario are numerous.

First, private companies are overwhelmingly more competent than the Federal Government. Second, if there are issues with misbehavior, the security firm can fire those employees. If there are prevalent problems, just fire that security firm and hire another one. It’s called competition. I don’t understand why people would want a monopolized entity with literally zero incentive to do anything correctly to be in charge of our airport security. Third, there are bound to be security firms that perform better than others at this task (more efficient, better safety record, higher throughput, etc). This allows other firms to analyze the competition and improve themselves. The whole industry benefits, as well as the American public.