It's Nice To Be Affirmed

In Christian Theology, especially among Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal Catholics, there is a concept called "affirmation." In this process someone within the church will "prophesize" something as a message from God, usually coming in the form of an impromptu piece of Scripture, speaking in tongues, or a discussion of a topic for the prayer meeting, and then sometime later--sometimes immediate and sometimes not--something will occur to confirm and affirm the message that was offered during a prayer meeting or counseling session.

What is sort of neat about this process is that a message not affirmed is dismissed. Those messages that are affirmed are then deemed worthy of deeper investigation, contemplation and study... and perhaps even some action.

For months upon months I have been discussing the uselessness of so many things done in the name of national security, homeland security and especially airline security. I have spoke to the issue of layering security efforts, putting into place the obvious "primary layers" of security first, then resorting to technology and intelligence, including profiling as a deeper layer of the security process. But I have advocated that profiling, data mining and other steps currently being employed as primary security efforts are useless because they are being used as the outer layers of an overall ineffective security system.

I have been affirmed in these last few days. First there was the story of two idiots trespassing at a Boston Area LNG storage tank, illustrating that the most basic of security efforts were not being implemented. Now comes a story that identifies "profiling" as not only being ineffective as a primary security layer, but quite possibly an effort that increases the risks of terrorism.

Search and Defend

THE profiling of behavioral cues to identify terrorists is the latest trend in American airport security. The Transportation Security Administration began experimenting with the technique last December at a dozen airports, and after this month’s reported bomb plot in Britain, agency officials said they wanted to train and redeploy hundreds of routine screeners at airports across the nation by the end of next year.

Should anyone be experimenting with security techniques in the actual place where security is needed with increasing urgency? Shouldn't we be putting PROVEN methods into effect first? Shouldn't we be redoubling our efforts on the basic layers of security before we invest time, energy, training resources and money into unproven techniques? What are these folks thinking? Do they think we are all dumb enough to believe that a beehive of activity is the equivalent of good security?

There’s no question we’d all like to improve airport security. But investing heavily in seemingly high-tech methods like behavioral profiling isn’t the answer, and may make air travel less safe on the whole.

To understand why, consider that just a few days after the introduction of stringent carry-on limits following the British bomb scare, a 59-year-old woman from Vermont boarded a Washington-bound jet at London Heathrow Airport, became unruly, and caused the plane to be diverted to Boston. A careful search discovered that she’d brought on the plane several cigarette lighters, matches, a screwdriver, hand lotion and bottled liquids.

How she managed to get those items through heightened screening is still unclear. What is clear, though, is that this passenger helped expose the Achilles’ heel in airport security: the basic search.

Exactly what I have been saying for three years! We cannot apply unproven techniques when we haven't properly applied proven techniques. We have not implemented proven technologies for detecting chemicals and explosives. We have not fully and properly trained the existing screeners and security personnel. The luggage moving through our "checked" baggage compartments still pose a major risk because it is not screened properly. But we are throwing good money after bad by implementing unproven methods and measures... as well as a few ridiculous ones as well: to wit, eliminating fluid containers.

Behavioral profiling — especially the cut-rate version the T.S.A. has in store for us — is not going to help in this respect. Learning to defeat poorly trained screeners is a lot easier than learning to fly a jumbo jet. The likely result is that our newly minted behavioral detectives will be singling out and searching the wrong passengers.

Behavioral profiling is by no means new. In the mid-1960’s, Paul Ekman, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, began researching how facial muscle movement relates to emotions. He noted several thousand facial muscle combinations and put together the Facial Action Coding System — an intricate, 500-page catalog of facial expressions.

Since then, there have been many studies of the ability to detect truth and deception, but they have been largely disappointing. A review of the literature published in 2000 found that in experiments where subjects were trying to detect whether others were telling the truth or lying, the subjects had an overall success rate of 56.6 percent — slightly better than a coin toss. In the studies that broke down their data, it was found that subjects were able to determine that they were being lied to only 44 percent of the time — meaning that they would have done better closing their eyes and guessing.

Therapists, people with years upon years of behavioral training and developed skills of psychological assessment, are wrong about 30% of the time. On my best days as a substance abuse clinician I could be wrong as much as 10% of the time, on my worst days I could be wrong 100% of the time. If people with specific long-term training (years!!!!) in behavior can be wrong that often, how much more wrong will security screeners trained by a few seminars and a few weeks of intensive training sessions be on average?

Police officers--including experienced investigators--make mistakes in such judgments as well. Police officers generally require some college training in the behavioral disciplines, including sociology, psychology and criminal justice, as well as an intensive "boot camp style" police academy experience. All of my law enforcement colleagues and contacts will certainly agree that mistakes are made in the process of investigating crimes and assessing suspects. The FBI behavioral units--the so-called profilers--make mistakes as well... and these are the best trained criminal assessment professionals in the world.

So how effective can a few weeks of training in this area really be? Add to this the fact that the majority of screeners are not intensely trained in most things. In Boston, for instance, they have my niece working in baggage handling and screening. My niece is a criminal justice major and a decent human being with a committed sense of working to a high degree of professionalism. She is also a big girl with a sense of putting people into their place (she is the only girl in her family and has had to keep her brothers in line most of her life). But she will tell you that despite her best efforts, the system in place at Logan International Airport is full of security holes... and most of them come from the lack of training and proper supervision of personnel.

A few studies have found that certain elite, highly trained professional groups may beat chance under specific conditions; however, a comprehensive survey of those also concluded that their accuracy rates overall were unremarkable. As Dr. Ekman himself noted in 1999, almost all the studies “have found that accuracy is close to chance.”

What this means is that on average, even the best trained profilers have a 50-50 chance of identifying a potential threat using behavioral profiling techniques. Proper basic security methods have, on average, over an 80% chance of identifying a threat... if the security folks are fully and properly trained and supervised appropriately.

Some anecdotal evidence is becoming mythic, but it’s largely misleading. The most common involves Ahmed Ressam, the millennium bomber, who was apprehended at the Canadian border in 1999 trying to smuggle bomb-making equipment. Mr. Ressam became a suspect when a customs agent felt that his itinerary seemed unusual and that he was acting oddly.

Many credit his arrest to a profiling plan put in effect by Raymond Kelly, then the head of United States Customs and now New York City’s police commissioner. True, under Mr. Kelly, the Customs search success rate improved by 25 percent while the overall number of searches decreased by 75 percent. But his profile rested on six factors, only two of which were behavioral. The four other factors involved canine searches, incorrect or suspicious paperwork and specific intelligence or contraband implicating the suspect. It’s unclear how much of the improved success turned on behavioral cues alone.

Okay, let's get real. Canine searches have been studied and proven to be effective about half-the time. Drug dogs have identified major drug caches and also missed on unannounced tests of their ability to identify test quantities of drugs. Bomb sniffing dogs are also under scrutiny. Several courts are beginning to question whether or not a canine "hit" actually creates a condition of probable cause and I expect that a good defense lawyer will challenge the validity and constitutionality of such searches given the empirical data that indicates a dog is about 50-50 as well.

Suspicious paperwork is a methodology that requires specific training on thousands of different documents, including passport standards for over 140 nations, visas and birth documents. The likelihood of an under-trained TSA agent catching a criminal or terrorist using this technique is minimal. A properly trained customs or immigration officer might be able to do so about 50% of the time... especially when you consider the volume of traffic at our airports and other entry points.

It must also be pointed out that folks arriving by charter or personal boat are only required to fill out a landing card with the local port or harbor master. In my hometown of Lynn, Massachusetts, the position of harbor master is all too often a political appointee with almost no police training and even less in terms of evaluating the accuracy and integrity of international documents.

It is noteworthy that while Commisioner Kelly was able to increase the effectiveness of searching passengers and their baggage by 25% (and it doesn't state what the starting point was--it could have been 0%, 30% 70%), the number of actual searched decreased by 75% (again, no starting numbers). What this says to me that while we increased the effectiveness of the screeners, we decreased the effectiveness of screening. But it is a fact that basic searching and screening is the most effective tool in the TSA aresenal... and it is the technique that is given the least amount of attention.

The remarkable track record of the security force at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv — no successful hijackings ever— is also often chalked up to behavioral profiling, but that too is naïve. For three decades, the airport has had intensive security practices and a sky marshal program. All departing passengers are interviewed and subjected to one-on-one searches that, according to Rafi Ron, former head of security at Ben-Gurion, take an average of 57 minutes per person.

Israel is thought to have had the most success with behavioral profiling. But again consider how the Israelis do it: they recruit their officers mostly from the military, subject them to stringent tests in order to weed out all but those with above-average intelligence and particularly strong personality types, and give them nine weeks of training in behavior recognition.

They blame the Israeli success on profiling, but the truth is that it is an appropriate layering of security methods that is effective. The Israelis are using chemical and explosive sniffing technologies. They are using profiling. But first and foremost they are using effective searches and interviews... security basics. But they also use a hell of a lot more security officers and it takes almost an hour to load passengers onto a plane.

It certainly seems like the Israeli approach operates as an extension of a police state. Which is not necessarily all that effective... after all, how many bombs have terrorists set off in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Hebron and elsewhere?

This is a far cry from the T.S.A.’s program: recruits are routine screeners, required only to have a high school degree and a criminal background check; they are given four days of classroom training in observation and questioning techniques, three days of field practice, then sent out on the job.

Rather than divert hundreds of screeners and untold dollars to high-tech fantasies, we need to invest those resources in hiring more routine screeners and giving them better training in basic searches.

Four days of training and a high school diploma separates the average passenger from a suspect. That doesn't reassure me that our nation is doing all that can be done to prevent future terrorism. I suppose this is better than no security at all, but not by much.

If we want to change the system, a better idea would be to eliminate most carry-ons and emulate high-security prisons. In my experience, most prisons operate the same way: first I check my briefcase, overcoat, belt, cellphone and all unnecessary items at the reception. I then take everything out of my pockets — wallet, pen and paper. A guard conducts a thorough pat-down search and physically inspects my property and shoes. We’re done in less than a minute.

I am not sure I would fly under those conditions. Do I want to be treated like a criminal or inmate just because I choose to fly from Boston to Chicago? Maybe this is the government's secret plan to boost sales on Amtrak, which by the way doesn't require you to dump your liquids before boarding the train.

Sure, this would not be 100 percent foolproof. But, in combination with our sky marshal program, it would be far more likely to prevent future terrorist hijackings than giving a bunch of unqualified screeners a cursory education in face reading.

Our sky marshall program is currently a joke. We had a better sky marshall program in the 1970s when we were experiencing hijackings on a regular basis. There have been numerous cuts to the training and manning of the sky marshall program over the years, all of which have been due to politics rather than effective policy or decision-making.

Bernard E. Harcourt, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of the forthcoming “Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing and Punishing in an Actuarial Age.”

Thanks Professor Harcourt... I needed the affirmation