The same ridiculed and useless techniques used by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) to not find terrorists at America’s airports are now being used at Orlando theme parks, including Disney World, Sea World, and Busch Gardens, to not find terrorists.
A Billion Dollars Hits the SPOT
The Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT, program is TSA’s one billion dollar “behavioral detection” scheme. SPOT requires TSA staff to be on the lookout for indicators, “tells” to you poker players out there, that give away bad guys. Some of the actual indicators are listed on the graphic, above.
There are actually 92 individual indicators (terrorists are sneaky!), divided into various categories with a point score assigned to each. Those categories include a preliminary “observation and behavior analysis.” Those passengers pulled over for additional inspection are scored based on two more categories: whether they have “unusual items,” like almanacs and “numerous prepaid calling cards or cell phones,” and a final category for “signs of deception,” which include “covers mouth with hand when speaking” and “fast eye blink rate.”
TSA agents are also told to watch out for persons traveling “wearing a disguise.”
You can also be judged less suspicious. Points can be deducted from someone’s score based on observations that they are part of an “apparent” married couple, as long as both people are over 55. No word on same sex couples. That’s two points deducted. Women over the age of 55 have one pointed deducted; for men, the point deduction doesn’t come until they reach 65.