In what should come as no surprise, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has said that the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program has no scientific proof [pdf] that it actually works.

The SPOT program utilizes behavior observation and analysis techniques to identify potentially high-risk passengers. GAO analysts provided Congress with information on the extent to which TSA has validated the scientific basis for SPOT and other operational challenges.

“Years after implementing a costly passenger screening program, the Homeland Security agency responsible for protecting the nation’s transportation system failed to detect terrorists at U.S. airports on nearly two dozen occasions,” according to Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch.

As a result the terrorists slipped right through “security” checkpoints and boarded commercial airplanes, according to the GAO report that’s difficult to swallow nearly a decade after the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history.

In 2010 SPOT cost taxpayers nearly $212 million and the Obama Administration wants $232 million for it this year.

But on at least 23 occasions its highly specialized Behavior Detection Officers failed to stop terrorists from boarding planes, investigators found. At least 16 people who were later charged or pleaded guilty to terrorism charges slipped through eight different U.S. airports with SPOT programs, according to the GAO’s findings.

Anyone with a basic education could have seen that such a program was not going to work. There are far too many variables that cannot be taken into account in every single instance of a passenger walking through the airport.

The DHS has agreed to an independent panel that is currently reviewing the viability of the SPOT program.