TSA'S FACE SPIES

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PATTI DAVIS, NEWSWEEK - "Specially trained security personnel" will be
watching passengers for "micro-expressions" that will reveal treacherous
agendas and insidious intentions at airports around the country. These
agents, who may literally hold your fate in their hands have been given
a lofty, Orwellian name: "Behavior Detection Officers."

Did anyone ever doubt that George Orwell's prophecies in "1984" would
arrive? In that novel, he wrote, "You had to live-did live, from habit
that became instinct-in the assumption that every sound you made was
overheard and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

In the study of "micro-expressions"-yes, it is actually a field of study
and there are some who are arrogant enough to call it a science-it has
been decided that when people wish to conceal emotions, the truth of
their feelings is revealed in facial flashes. These experts have
determined that fear and disgust are the key things to look for because
they can hint of deception.

Let's see, fear and disgust in an airport? I'm frightened and disgusted
weeks before I have to show up at an airport. In fact, I've pretty much
sworn off the whole idea of going anywhere by airplane. It's bad enough
that I might be trapped in a crowded plane with no food or water and
nonworking toilets for hours; now there are security agents interpreting
our facial expressions. The face police, in place at more than a dozen
U.S. airports already, aren't identified as such. But the watcher could
be at curbside baggage, the ticket counter or near the metal detectors
and X-ray machines. The Transportation Security Administration hopes to
have as many as 500 Behavior Detection Officers on the job by the end of
2008.

But what about the woman who is getting on a plane to see a dying
relative? Or the man who is traveling to another state to see a cancer
specialist in a last bid for extending his life? What about the guy who
just had a fight with his spouse and now worries that a plane crash
would mean their last words were in anger? . . .

So while TSA employees are confiscating our scissors and water bottles,
they're going to secretly be staring at us, looking for some telltale
sign of terrorist intent in a grimace, a sigh, a crinkled nose? Who
knows what? In the end, the Behavior Detection Officers are the ones who
are really acting suspicious. Which is the truth of the matter anyway.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20298840/site/newsweek/page/0/

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