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TSA Screeners Begin Chatting Up Logan Travelers

It's part of the agency's behavior-detection strategy

By John Johnson,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 18, 2011 1:00 PM CDT

(Newser) – If you're traveling through Logan anytime soon, be prepared for chatty TSA screeners. It's in the name of security, not politeness. As part of the agency's expanding strategy to try to weed out terrorists, all passengers in one of the Boston airport's terminals will have to answer questions from a TSA officer upon providing their boarding pass and ID, reports the Los Angeles Times. The pilot program began this week and will likely be expanded to airports around the country eventually.

"If all you're doing is watching people standing in line, that's better than doing nothing, and they've had quite a bit of success," says a UC professor who's an expert in the field. "But I would expect that by asking a few fairly innocent questions—'What's the purpose of your trip?'—that will increase accuracy." Screeners will be trained to look for telltale signs of lying.

A passenger goes through a full-body scanner at Logan International Airport in Boston last year.
A passenger goes through a full-body scanner at Logan International Airport in Boston last year.   (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 9 comments
LoginsSuck
Aug 18, 2011 3:28 PM CDT
I like it. As long as they are friendly chatters. Unfreindly are no fun.
Cinnamon
Aug 18, 2011 1:48 PM CDT
Other countries already do this. I got "chatted up" at every European airport I went through last month. In Amsterdam, my friend and I got questioned in German because the guy wasn't sure we'd actually been in Germany for a month. When we answered his questions, no problems, he asked us more and more about our relationship (how long we'd been friends, etc) and whether or not we made any "international friends" during our short semester and if these "international friends, no matter how nice they seemed" had given us anything to take home to the States. That guy was extreme, though. Everyone else took "Studying abroad" or "I'm a student" as a satisfactory answer.
DontLikeYou
Aug 18, 2011 1:28 PM CDT
What's the purpose of your trip?   "Go f*** yourself you high school drop out."
 

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