Loss of Privacy

Despite numerous reports that the SPOT program doesn’t work as it should, the UK is bringing their own version to British airports.

OVER the past four years, some 3,000 officers in America’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have been specially trained to spot potential terrorists at airports. The programme, known as SPOT, for “Screening Passengers by Observation Technique,” is intended to allow airport security officers to use tiny facial cues to identify people who are acting suspiciously. The British government is currently launching a new screening regime modelled on the Americans’ SPOT. There’s just one problem with all this: there’s no evidence that SPOT is actually effective.

SPOT lies more in the realm of pseudoscience rather than real science. There is no real way to detect if such a program actually works because, under controlled conditions, it is never under the same conditions one would face in the real world. Given the popularity of TV shows, such as Lie to Me, people are rely on the false assumption that SPOT technology actually works.

“No scientific evidence exists to support the detection or inference of future behaviour, including intent,” declares a 2008 report prepared by the JASON defence advisory group. And the TSA had no business deploying SPOT across the nation’s airports “without first validating the scientific basis for identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment”, stated a two-year review of the programme released on 20 May by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress.

The bottom line is that, according to the GAO, the TSA is “unsure” whether SPOT has ever led to the arrest of an actual, real-life terrorist. The agency has hired an independent contractor to evaluate the program, and the results are due next year. In the meantime, the TSA will presumably continue to spend taxpayer dollars on a program that it’s not really sure is effective.

Considering the fact that the SPOT program has been in effect for four years, it didn’t stop the underpants bomber when red flags were raised at every step of his journey.

SPOT is nothing more than security theater, just like the Iraq bomb detectors, and The United Kingdom is willing to bring it to their shores at the cost of millions of taxpayer’s money.

Police were called to Millennial Tech Magnet Middle School in San Diego after the vice principal concluded that a student brought a bomb to school as a science project. The vice principal saw the student showing the project to another student and overreacted. The student’s project was meant to be a type of motion detector.

Luque said the project was made of an empty half-liter Gatorade bottle with some wires and other electrical components attached. There was no substance inside.

When police and the Metro Arson Strike Team responded, they also found electrical components in the student’s backpack, Luque said. After talking to the student, it was decided about 1 p.m. to evacuate the school as a precaution while the item was examined. Students were escorted to a nearby playing field, and parents were called and told they could come pick up their children.

A MAST robot took pictures of the device and X-rays were evaluated. About 3 p.m., the device was determined to be harmless, Luque said.

Why did it take all day, with x-rays from a robot to determine it was harmless? The student and the parents were very cooperative. Can the Strike Team not understand basic electronics? If they can’t, how did they get on the Strike Team?

Police also went to the student’s home and found nothing, however, the student and his parents have been advised to seek counseling because he violated school policies. Presumably, these violations include the independent thought process. The article, nor the school, specifies which policy was violated.

Instead of calling the authorities and overreacting, the vice principal should have asked to see the project and the student in the office. This way, the vice principal could ascertain whether or not there was a real threat. Instead, he chose the panic route and disrupted everyone’s lives. Another tip would be not to put the school on lockdown when you suspect that a bomb is in the building. You evacuate everyone from the building.

The only people in this story that need counseling are the vice principal and the Strike Team. This school is a tech school and as such, the vice principal should have some knowledge of electronics. He could gain valuable information just by walking in the hallways and talking to students. If he doesn’t understand these basics, then he shouldn’t be allowed to retain his position.

The school should also pay for any counseling that the family needs because it was their fault that the family has been traumatized.

Since the student is in a magnet tech school, he should immediately go home and build everything in this book. Just don’t bring it to school. That way, his imagination continues to be encouraged outside of the box called school.