Saturday, January 25, 2014

Ever get eerie feeling that you are being watched at US airports

Ever get eerie feeling that you are being watched at US airports. We don't mean the cameras, we mean 'watched' by people.

Well, you are being watched by Transportation security administration (TSA) special force who are specially trained to detect behavioral clues of bad intention. They observe travelers at checkpoints and throughout the airport for signs of abnormal stress, fear, nervousness in passengers.

They also engage in casual conversation to look at the passenger's reactions. They look for fidgeting, excessive sweating and wearing unusual clothes e:g heavy jacket in warm weather.
They wear uniform and they work in pairs to study passengers from different angles and use a point system to score the levels of suspicious behavior.  Often they join the suspicious passenger in the security queue and try to break the ice by commenting on the clothing or something else, all the time measuring the reaction of the passenger.

If they get suspicious, then the passenger is singled out for enhanced screening at checkpoints, including a pat down and search of personal property. This kind of screening takes about 15 minutes, during which time one of the officer engages in a voluntary conversation with the passenger. If the passenger exhibits suspicious behavior or anything suspicious is found, law enforcement is immediately called.

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