TSA Profiling At Airports Has Yet To Nab A Terrorist

The TSA’s behavior-profiling program at airports has been in effect for seven years, but has yet to identify any potential terrorists who pose a threat to aviation, the agency’s administrator acknowledged Thursday.

Mr. Pistole is fighting to preserve the profiling program, run by Behavior Detection Officers, or BDOs, in the face of a new government-watchdog report that says the research shows officers are little better than random chance in picking out potentially dangerous passengers.

The Government Accountability Office recommended cutting funding — and that proposal has the support of a number of members of Congress, who said the $200 million a year spent on profiling could be better spent elsewhere.

Mr. Pistole acknowledged that the BDO program hasn’t detected any would-be terrorists, and that most of the people that end up being referred all the way to law enforcement are illegal immigrants, drug traffickers or those with outstanding arrest warrants.

The BDO program is separate from the screenings of luggage and passengers performed by security officers.

BDOs are trained to look for 94 different telltale behaviors that could signal a dangerous intent. But the GAO review said officers interpret the behavioral cues differently, making it subjective.

In fact, during their review of a month of operations, the GAO found some officers never referred a single passenger for a secondary screening.

By Stephen Dinan

TSA Doesn't Think Terrorists Are Plotting To Attack

Jonathan Corbett, a long-time vocal critic of TSA body scanners, has been engaged in a lawsuit against the government concerning the constitutionality of those scanners. In the course of the case, the TSA gave him classified documents, which he was ordered not to reveal. In using some of that information to make his case, he needed to file two copies of his brief: a public one with classified stuff redacted, and the full brief under seal, for the government and the courts to look at. Just one problem: someone over at Infowars noticed that apparently a clerk at the 11th Circuit appeals court forgot to file the document under seal, allowing them to find out what was under the redactions... Included in there is the following, apparently quoted from the TSA's own statements:

“As of mid-2011, terrorist threat groups present in the Homeland are not known to be actively plotting against civil aviation targets or airports; instead, their focus is on fundraising, recruiting, and propagandizing.”

Elsewhere, the TSA appears to admit that "due to hardened cockpit doors and the willingness of passengers to challenge hijackers," it's unlikely that there's much value in terrorists trying to hijack a plane these days (amusingly, that statement is a clear echo of Bruce Schneier's statement criticizing the TSA's security theater -- suggesting that the TSA flat out knows that airport security is nothing more than such theatrics).

Elsewhere, in the redacted portions, the TSA is quoted as admitting that "there have been no attempted domestic hijackings of any kind in the 12 years since 9/11." 

As Corbett notes in his filing, the entire basis for the nude scanners is that they were somehow necessary to stop terrorists with explosives from getting on planes. Yet, as he makes clear, the TSA knows that there's been little threat of any such attack for quite some time. He also details how the machines are not very good at tracking down explosives, and pretty much everything that has been caught with these machines (such as guns) could be easily found via traditional metal detectors. Further, as noted above, other protections that have nothing to do with the nude scanners are the main reason (which the TSA admits) that terrorists have moved on from targeting airplanes.

Amazingly, it appears that the government forced Corbett to redact the revelation that the TSA's own threat assessments have shown "literally zero evidence that anyone is plotting to blow up an airline leaving from a domestic airport." Corbett argues that this shows why the searches are not reasonable under the 4th Amendment. Corbett also points out that about the only thing the machines seem useful at catching are illegal drugs -- but, as he notes, that's "irrelevant to aviation security." Sure, the government may like the fact that it catches illegal drugs with these machines, but the TSA can't argue it needs the machines for "terrorism" when it knows that's not true, and then tries to keep them just because it finds some narcotics...

While it still seems unlikely that Corbett's lawsuit will actually succeed, he's right that these revelations mean that, at the very least, Congress should be investigating why the TSA insisted that it needed these machines to find terrorists that it now admits aren't actually plotting to attack airplanes.

Uncle Sam The Snooper

American Freedoms Are Being Replaced With The Illusion Of Security

Tuesday, May 8, 2012
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Tampa, Fla., wants to cancel the rights of concealed-carry permit holders in the vicinity of the upcoming Republican National Convention. Commuter-train passengers in Chicago will be subjected to frisking and airport-style X-ray scanning during next week’s NATO summit. TheObama administration is asking for warrantless access to cellphone location records.

The common thread in these recent headlines is the notion that government can do no wrong when it comes to making people feel safe. It’s an illusion. Instead of enhanced safety, we’re seeing the destruction of the fundamental values - based on the liberty of the individual - that once made America stand apart from the rest of the world.

In the 1980s, the phrase “Papers, please” was the sort of thing heard only when watching a spy movie set in a totalitarian state such as East Germany. Now we have a Supreme Court that rules the Fourth Amendment’s protection against suspicionless search and seizure of individuals must be set aside so police can set up Soviet-style roadblocks to verify that a person’s driving papers are in order. This is supposedly for safety.

About a dozen states ban such checkpoints, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s accident database shows they’re just as safe as states where checkpoints are widespread. Alaska and Idaho don’t allow roadblocks, yet they are enjoying a greater reduction in road fatalities than the national average.

Today’s privacy invasions aren’t about producing tangible results. In February, President Obama signed the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill into law, which includes a provision promoting the widespread use of military-style surveillance drones on U.S. soil. The Department of Homeland Security already has been handing out taxpayer money like candy for the purchase of these high-tech spy machines.

Last month, Hawaii’s transportation department admitted it wasted $75,000 in federal funds on an unmanned aerial vehicle that it is unable to use. The Gadsden, Ala., police department used the federal checkbook to purchase two drones in 2010. They, too, are locked away and have never flown. “If we don’t have a specific need for this tool, why break it out of the box?” Gadsden Police Chief John Crane said to the Gadsden Times last month.

As long as the pricey surveillance devices are being bought with other people’s money, local officials aren’t going to worry about whether they fulfill an actual need or not. They function like a child’s security blanket, enabling politicians and bureaucrats to issue press releases claiming they are “doing something” against terrorism and crime that all may now feel secure.

There’s more than a monetary price to be paid for indulging in this safety placebo. The more these tools find their way into more bureaucratic toolboxes around the country, the more likely it is they will not be used against terrorists and drug dealers but will be misused for personal ends, such as getting back at ex-wives and political enemies. What other government program has been free of waste, fraud and abuse?

It’s not too late to recover the privacy rights that have been fading over the past few decades. Small-government conservatives and the liberals who still believe in civil liberties can unite in opposition to the worst abuses. All it takes is the will to say enough is enough.

The Washington Times

DNA-Destroying Chip Being Embedded Into Mobile Phones

Terrence Aym
April 29, 2012
Courtesy Of "4 Winds 10"

According to Dr. Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, terahertz (THz) waves destroy human DNA. The waves literally unzip the helix strand. Now a team of technologists at UT Dallas are planning to take chips broadcasting THz waves and embed them into mobile phones for use as an imaging system for consumers, law enforcement and medical personnel… a potentially deadly technology that could eventually kill or sicken millions of people.

The controversial THz scanner technology used by the TSA at many of the nation’s airports is being adapted for cell phone use. Studies of terahertz radiation have caused experts to raise alarms over the significant health risks to humans.

Recently major media touted a new chip that permits the adaption of a THz generating device to be embedded into cellular phones.

Is the price for seeing through walls, a grisly death?

The excited press painted grand pictures of such technology being used by consumers to see through walls and objects, while health professionals like physcians might incorporate the technology to seek out small tumors inside patients without the need for invasive surgery.

The THz wave—located between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum—was chosen for security devices because it penetrates matter such as clothing, wood, paper and other porous material that’s non-conducting. At the time experts believed this type of radiation was harmless.

They were wrong.

From this…                                                To this…?

THz Radiation Unzips The DNA Molecule

In a breakthrough study conducted by Dr. Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a team of physicists, they discovered terrifying evidence that exposure to THz radiation builds cumulatively and affects human and animal tissue DNA. In essence, it tends to unzip the DNA molecule. [See: Inside TSA scanners: How terahertz waves tear apart human DNA]

The Los Alamos scientists paper, DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field reveals very disturbing—even shocking—evidence that THz radiation significantly damages the DNA of the people being directed through airport scanners and all TSA workers in close proximity to the machines.

Their synopsis: “We consider the influence of a terahertz field on the breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA. We model the spontaneous formation of spatially localized openings of a damped and driven DNA chain, and find that linear instabilities lead to dynamic dimerization, while true local strand separations require a threshold amplitude mechanism. Based on our results we argue that a specific terahertz radiation exposure may significantly affect the natural dynamics of DNA, and thereby influence intricate molecular processes involved in gene expression and DNA replication.“

 

What all that means is the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself: normal DNA replication and critical gene expression.

Likely To Cause Cancer

David J. Brenner, a Columbia University doctor and expert on the effects of radiation stated that it’s quite likely the TSA scanners will cause cancer in some individuals.

Brenner, whose Columbia’s Center for Radiological Research work focuses on radiation’s effects on biological processes, low exposure risk evaluation and radio-isotopic therapy, is concerened that people with compromised immune systems such as AIDS patients, those suffering from lupus or other immune-deficient ailments are especially at risk. Infants, children up to age 5 or 6, women who are pregnant or lactating, cancer patients and many more should steer far clear of the machines.

DNA strand bombarded by THz radiation unzips

Those exposed to THz radiation—whether from security scanners or future cell phone technology—who are taking certain prescription medications or have significantly low levels of certain vitamins have increased risk of radiation induced carcinomas.

Repeated exposure to low level radiation scans can also lead to cataracts and bring on skin cancer—including deadly melanoma.

A CMOS chip used in many different products

THz To Utilize Existing CMOS Chips

According to the Daily Mail, the chips—created using Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor—or CMOS use the same technology already incorporated into devices like HD TVs, smart phones and personal computers.

Dr. Kenneth O, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas and leader of the project explained to theDaily Mail that “We’ve created approaches that open a previously untapped portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for consumer use and life-saving medical applications.

“CMOS is affordable and can be used to make lots of chips,” Dr. O said. “The combination of CMOS and terahertz means you could put this chip and receiver on the back of a cellphone, turning it into a device carried in your pocket that can see through objects.”

The team’s findings were presented to an enthusiastic audience at the 2012 International Solid-State Circuits Conference held in San Francisco, California. Next the team plans to create the CMOS terahertz imaging system.

Before moving ahead with the project, the good doctor and his team might consider contacting Dr. Boian Alexandrov and histeam at Los Alamos to compare notes.

It would be a shame if a deadly technology that could eventually kill or sicken millions of people were unknowingly sold across the world.

http://www.pakalertpress.com/2012/04/29/dna-destroying-chip-being-embedded-into-mobile-phones/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pakalert+%28Pak+Alert+Press%29

 

TSA Tyranny

Posted by guest blogger "Sayf Maslul"


"A Nation Of Sheep Will Beget A Government Of Wolves"

[Edward R. Murrow]

TSA Spreading Its Wings Beyond Airports

Anti-Terror Teams Target Bus, Train Depots, Cruise Ships. Have Your Papers Ready. 

Published: Dec. 28, 2011 
Updated: 4:16 p.m. 
Courtesy Of "THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER"

Weren't airport pat downs enough? The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its reach of checkpoints and control far beyond protecting airports.

"TSA teams are increasingly conducting searches and screenings at train stations, subways, ferry terminals and other mass-transit locations around the country," the Los Angeles Times reported. Ray Dineen, the air marshal in charge of the TSA office in Charlotte, N.C., told the paper, "We are not the Airport Security Administration. We take that transportation part seriously."

The TSA has established a new operation, with another of those unwieldy government names: Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response. These VIPR teams, according to the Times, "have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year." The DHS is the TSA's parent department. Both were founded in the rush to "do something, anything" following 9/11, even if the result damaged sacred American liberties.

In 2011, the TSA spent $110 million on the VIPR teams. Like every government agency ever heard of, it wants more taxpayer money and is seeking another $24 million for 2012. That would be a 22 percent increase – at a time of severe budget deficits.

The VIPR teams in 2011 checked ferry, cruise-ship, bus and train passengers. According to News Channel 5, a Nashville, Tenn., TV station, in October, "Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.

"Agents are recruiting truck drivers ... into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something. ... It's all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious."

Nov. 4, the Sacramento Bee reported, "[TSA] agents boarded Amtrak trains in Sacramento today to conduct one of their periodic VIPR operations, officials said."

To us, this sounds like something more like the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany, in which citizens spy on one another. "Your papers, please!" should not be a command Americans hear, and fear.

The TSA insists the VIPR stings are making America safer from terrorist attacks. The random nature of the checkpoints supposedly would scramble terrorists' planning.

Critics call it political theater. Fred H. Cate, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, said, "It's a great way to make the public think you are doing something. It's a little like saying, 'If we start throwing things up in the air, will they hit terrorists?'"

We also object to this on civil rights grounds. The Fourth Amendment guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Airport pat downs are bad enough. But searching random bus passengers – without any prior grounds for suspicion – clearly is a step too far for the TSA.

In this time of tight budgets, Congress not only should deny an extra $24 million for the VIPR program, but should cancel the program, saving $110 million. Local law enforcement, attuned to the Fourth Amendment and local needs, can protect us adequately without the feds always barging in.

As Ben Franklin warned, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

TSA Checkpoints Emerge Across Tennessee

Tennessee Becomes First State To Fight Terrorism Statewide

By Adam Ghassemi
Posted: Oct 18, 2011 6:34 PM EDT
Updated: Oct 20, 2011 12:26 PM EDT
Courtesy Of "News Channel 5"



PORTLAND, Tenn. – You're probably used to seeing TSA's signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).

"Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.

Agents are recruiting truck drivers, like Rudy Gonzales, into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something.

"Not only truck drivers, but cars, everybody should be aware of what's going on, on the road," said Gonzales.

It's all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious.

"Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abet the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious," said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol checked trucks with drug and bomb sniffing dogs during random inspections.

"The bottom line is this: if you see something suspicious say something about it," Gibbons said Tuesday.

The random inspections really aren't any more thorough normal, according to Tennessee Highway Patrol Colonel Tracy Trott who says paying attention to details can make a difference. Trott pointed out it was an Oklahoma state trooper who stopped Timothy McVeigh for not having a license plate after the Oklahoma City bombing in the early 1990s.

Tuesday's statewide "VIPR" operation isn't in response to any particular threat, according to officials.

Armes said intelligence indicates law enforcement should focus on the highways as well as the airports.

TSA Is Greater Threat To Americans Than Are Terrorists

By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Nov 24, 2010, 00:24
Courtesy Of "The Online Journal"

It doesn’t take a bureaucrat long to create an empire. John Pistole, the FBI agent who took over the Transportation Security Administration on July 1, told USA Today 16 days later that protecting trains and subways from terrorist attacks will be as high a priority for him as air travel.

It is difficult to imagine New Yorkers being porno-screened and sexually groped on crowed subway platforms or showing up an hour or two in advance for clearance for a 15-minute subway ride, but once bureaucrats get the bit in their teeth they take absurdity to its logical conclusion. Buses will be next, although it is even more difficult to imagine open air bus stops turned into security zones with screeners and gropers inspecting passengers before they board.

Will taxi passengers be next? In those Muslim lands whose citizens the US government has been slaughtering for years, favorite weapons for retaliating against the Americans are car and truck bombs. 

How long before Pistole announces that the TSA Gestapo is setting up roadblocks on city streets, highways and interstates to check cars for bombs?

That 15-minute trip to the grocery store then becomes an all day affair.

Indeed, it has already begun. Last September agents from Homeland Security, TSA, and the US Department of Transportation, assisted by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, conducted a counter-terrorism operation on busy Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, Georgia. Designated VIPER (Visible Inter-mobile Prevention and Response), the operation required all trucks to stop to be screened for bombs. 

Federal agents used dogs, screening devices, and a large drive-through bomb detection machine. 

Imagine what the delays did to delivery schedules and truckers’ bottom lines.

There are also news reports of federal trucks equipped with backscatter X-ray devices that secretly scan cars and pedestrians. 

With such expensive counter-terrorism activities, both in terms of the hard-pressed taxpayers’ money and civil liberties, one would think that bombs were going off all over America. But, of course, they aren’t. There has not been a successful terrorist act since 9/11, and thousands of independent experts doubt the government’s explanation of that event.

Subsequent domestic terrorist events have turned out to be FBI sting operations in which FBI agents organize not-so-bright disaffected members of society and lead them into displaying interest in participating in a terrorist act. Once the FBI agent, pretending to be a terrorist, succeeds in prompting all the right words to be said and captured on his hidden recorder, the“terrorists” are arrested and the “plot” exposed.

The very fact that the FBI has to orchestrate fake terrorism proves the absence of real terrorists.

If Americans were more thoughtful and less gullible, they might wonder why all the emphasis on transportation when there are so many soft targets. Shopping centers, for example. If there were enough terrorists in America to justify the existence of Homeland Security, bombs would be going off round the clock in shopping malls in every state. The effect would be far more terrifying than blowing up an airliner.

Indeed, if terrorists want to attack air travelers, they never need to board an airplane.

All they need to do is to join the throngs of passengers waiting to go through the TSA scanners and set off their bombs. The TSA has conveniently assembled the targets.

The final proof that there are no terrorists is that not a single neoconservative or government official responsible for the Bush regime’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the Obama regime’s slaughters of Pakistanis, Yemenis, and Somalians has been assassinated. None of these Americans who are responsible for lies, deceptions, and invasions that have destroyed the lives of countless numbers of Muslims have any security protection. If Muslims were capable of pulling off 9/11, they are certainly capable of assassinating Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Libby, Condi Rice, Kristol, Bolton, Goldberg, and scores of others during the same hour of the same day. 

I am not advocating that terrorists assassinate anyone. I am just making the point that if the US were as overrun with terrorists as empire-building bureaucrats pretend, we would definitely be experiencing dramatic terrorist acts. The argument is not believable that a government that was incapable of preventing 9/11 is so all-knowing that it can prevent assassination of unprotected neocons and shopping malls from being bombed. 

If Al Qaeda were anything like the organization that the US government claims, it would not be focused on trivial targets such as passenger airliners. The organization, if it exists, would be focused on its real enemies. Try to imagine the propaganda value of terrorists wiping out the neoconservatives in one fell swoop, followed by an announcement that every member of the federal government down to the lowest GS, every member of the House and Senate, and every governor was next in line to be bumped off.

This would be real terrorism instead of the make-belief stuff associated with shoe bombs that don’t work, underwear bombs that independent experts say could not work, and bottled water and shampoo bombs that experts say cannot possibly be put together in airliner lavatories. 

Think about it. Would a terror organization capable of outwitting all 16 US intelligence agencies, all intelligence agencies of US allies, including Israel’s Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, air traffic control, the Pentagon, and airport security four times in one hour put its unrivaled prestige at risk with improbable shoe bombs, shampoo bombs, and underwear bombs?

After success in destroying the World Trade Center and blowing up part of the Pentagon, it is an extraordinary comedown to go after a mere airliner. Would a person who gains fame by knocking out the world heavyweight boxing champion make himself a laughing stock by taking lunch money from school boys?

TSA is a far greater threat to Americans than are terrorists. Pistole has given the finger to US senators and representatives, state legislators, and the traveling public who have expressed their views that virtual strip searches and sexual molestation are too high a price to pay for“security.” Indeed, the TSA, with its Gestapo attitude and methods, is succeeding in making Americans more terrified of the TSA than they are of terrorists. 

Make up your own mind. What terrifies you the most? Terrorists, who in all likelihood you will never encounter in your lifetime, or the TSA that you will encounter every time you fly and soon, according to Pistole, every time you take a train, a subway, or drive in a car or truck?

Before making up your mind, consider this report from antiwar.com on November 19: “TSA officials say that anyone refusing both the full body scanners and the enhanced pat down procedures will be taken into custody. Once there the detainees will not only be barred from flying, but will be held indefinitely as suspected terrorists . . . One sheriff’s office said they were already preparing to handle a large number of detainees and plan to treat them as terror suspects.” 

Who is cowing Americans into submission, terrorists or the TSA Gestapo?

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary U.S. Treasury, Associate Editor Wall Street Journal, Columnist for Business Week, Senior Research Fellow Hoover Institution Stanford University, and William E. Simon Chair of Political Economy in the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached atPaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com. 

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

TSA Funding Airport Mind-Reading Scanners

The risks to personal privacy inherent in mind-reading technologies should concern the public about abuse of their rights.

By Daniel Tencer,
Source: The Raw Story
Posted January 9, 2010
Courtesy Of Alter Net

Amid the media furor over the attempted Christmas Day attacks and a renewed political focus on enhancing airport security, attention is turning to a technological advancement that will have civil rights activists -- or, for that matter, anyone with a secret --seriously worried: Mind-reading machines.

"As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year," AP's Michael Tarm reports.

Tarm focuses on an Israeli company called WeCU Technologies (as in "we see you"), which is building a system that would turn airport waiting areas into arenas for Pavlovian behavioral tests:

The system ... projects images onto airport screens, such as symbols associated with a certain terrorist group or some other image only a would-be terrorist would recognize, company CEO Ehud Givon said.

The logic is that people can't help reacting, even if only subtly, to familiar images that suddenly appear in unfamiliar places. If you strolled through an airport and saw a picture of your mother, Givon explained, you couldn't help but respond.

The reaction could be a darting of the eyes, an increased heartbeat, a nervous twitch or faster breathing, he said. The WeCU system would use humans to do some of the observing but would rely mostly on hidden cameras or sensors that can detect a slight rise in body temperature and heart rate.

Homeland Security officials have long been keen on Israeli counter-terror technologies, given the country's extensive experience with terrorism and its reputation for having some of the most effective security systems in the world.

According to numerous news reports, WeCU has received two grants, from the US Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, for their research. Raw Story was unable to determine how much money WeCU received from the US government, but regulatory filings show the company spent at least $60,000 on lobbying in Washington in 2006 and 2007.

WeCU has already developed a prototype model of the mind-reading technology, which, according to an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has already been demonstrated to government security officials in the US, Germany and Israel. It was evidently from that demonstration that US agencies decided to fund the project.

"It sounds like science fiction," WeCU CEO Ehud Givon told the Jerusalem Post. "But I can assure you that the technology is very real. We have accuracy rates that are higher than 95 percent."

Supporters of mind-reading technology argue that it would reduce waiting lines at security checkpoints and reduce the hassle for travelers. But the risks to personal privacy inherent in mind-reading technologies are self-evident. AP reports:

Some critics have expressed horror at the approach, calling it Orwellian and akin to "brain fingerprinting."

For civil libertarians, attempting to read a person's thoughts comes uncomfortably close to the future world depicted in the movie "Minority Report," where a policeman played by Tom Cruise targets people for "pre-crimes," or merely thinking about breaking the law.

WeCU's technology is by no means the only mind-reading security system in development today. Another Israeli company, Suspect Detection Systems, has developed a technology that reads a person's "hostile intent" by measuring bodily responses, through the person's hand, while being asked questions. That system was field-tested at the Knoxville, Tennessee, airport last summer.

Between 2005 and 2006, SDS received $460,000 in grants from the TSA and the science directorate of Homeland Security.

The company appears to have ramped up its public relations in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt.

"A simple five minute automated interrogation during the Visa application process, or at the airport security checkpoint, would have most assuredly exposed the evil intention of Christmas terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he ever boarded," SDS CEO Shabtai Shoval said in a press release.

But while these methods are still in development, other behavior-detection technologies, that have less to do directly with reading minds, are on the cusp of being ready for deployment. The Department of Homeland Security has given the green light to FAST, or Future Attribute Screening Technology, which uses a combination of biometric scanners to measure a person's pulse, breathing, pupil dilation and other signals that can determine "hostile intent."

While FAST isn't quite as intrusive as the WeCU system, it appears to be much closer to implementation, with field testing of the $20-million technology set to begin in 2011.

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"How To" for Terrorists to Get Through Airport Security

Massive TSA Security Breach As Agency Gives Away Its Secrets

By BRIAN ROSS and MATT HOSFORD
Dec. 8, 2009
Courtesy Of ABC News

In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted online its airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most closely guarded secrets regarding special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers.

Share

Document mistakenly posted online reveals agency's top screening secrets.

More Photos

The most sensitive parts of the 93-page Standard Operating Procedures manual were apparently redacted in a way that computer savvy individuals easily overcame.

The document shows sample CIA, Congressional and law enforcement credentials which experts say would make it easy for terrorists to duplicate.

The improperly redacted areas indicate that only 20 percent of checked bags are to be hand searched for explosives and reveal in detail the limitations of x-ray screening machines.

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More from Brian Ross and the Investigative Team

CLICK HERE TO READ THE SCREENING MANUAL and HERE TO SEE THE SAMPLE CIA CREDENTIAL

"This is an appalling and astounding breach of security that terrorists could easily exploit," said Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security. "The TSA should immediately convene an internal investigation and discipline those responsible."

"This shocking breach undercuts the public's confidence in the security procedures at our airports," said Senator Susan Collins, R-Me., ranking Republican member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "On the day before the Senate Homeland Security Committee's hearing on terrorist travel, it is alarming to learn that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted its own security manual on the Internet."

"This manual provides a road map to those who would do us harm," said Collins. "The detailed information could help terrorists evade airport security measures." Collins said she intended to ask the Department of Homeland Security how the breach happened, and "how it will remedy the damage that has already been done."

In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) inadvertently posted online...

In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) inadvertently posted online its entire airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most closely guarded secrets regarding special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers.

(Transportation Security Agency)
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TSA Document Leaked Online

A TSA spokesperson says the document posted online is an outdated version "improperly posted by the agency to the Federal Business Opportunities Web site wherein redacted material was not properly protected."

The TSA requested the document be taken offline, but by then it had spread around the Internet and is still available today.

The document contains a list of items for which screening is not required including wheelchairs, footwear of disabled individuals, casts and orthopedic shoes.

The redacted portions also indicate which law enforcement personnel are specially screened or exempt from some screening procedures, and indicate what requirements they must meet to be eligible for special screening.

TSA screeners are also told to require extra screening for any passenger whose passport was issued by Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen or Algeria.

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High-Flying Bin Ladens: 12 Kin Hold FAA Licenses

The document also reveals that during peak travel times, TSA screeners who check identification can reduce from 100 percent to 25 percent the times they use black lights to authenticate documents.

"Screening is like a big puzzle and this SOP gives you directions on putting the puzzle together," said Robert MacLean, a former Federal Air Marshal who was fired for revealing holes in TSA's security after the 9/11 attacks. MacLean added that TSA's assertion that the documents posted are old holds no merit. "How much in screening procedure changes in 17 months?" asked MacLean. "It's a one-dimensional process."

The TSA says it is taking the release of the sensitive information "seriously" and is conducting a full review.

"TSA has many layers of security to keep the traveling public safe and to constantly adapt to evolving threats," the agency said in a statement. "TSA is confident that screening procedures currently in place remain strong." The document also provides a glimpse of the special treatment available for governors, lieutenant governors and the mayor of Washington, D.C., as well as their spouses and family and staff.