Why is it that flying always makes me think about security? Especially in light of this article and this article from over the weekend.

The first article was written by a pilot for The New York Times' flying blog, "Jet Lagged." The pilot, Patrick Smith, maintains that not only are security procedures, like shoe removal, explosive swabbing, and liquid prohibition, poor customer service, but they don't work, either. The British terrorists who wanted to blow stuff up by using liquids were not anywhere near carrying out their plan; they hadn't even bought tickets! Their plot was not foiled by a sharp TSA screener who saw the terror their liquids could cause: it was good, old-fashioned, non-warrantless police work.

Smith presents an interesting case. Prior to the September 11 attacks, he says, the mindset of plane hijacking was fundamentally different. Up to that point, planes had been used to hold hostages and receive demands. Flight crews were instructed to carry out the terrorists' demands, the assumption being that (1) it was better to protect the lives of the passengers and crew, and (2) they would catch the terrorists later, anyway. It's the same mentality law enforcement uses with kidnapping: pay the kidnapper now, get the kid, and then locate and arrest the kidnapper. It's a strategy that works; most kidnappers get caught.

But, on September 11, the hijackers of those four planes had a different idea in mind: they never planned to hold anyone hostage. The flight crew (aided by their belief that the hijackers were wearing bombs, which apparently turned out to be fake and designed to provoke acquiescence) did as the terrorists commanded, which is what they were trained to do. No more, says Smith: "Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back." A set of unique loopholes was exploited by the terrorists, and our current security screening procedures wouldn't have caught them today any more than it would have caught them then. The box-cutters? "A deadly sharp can be fashioned from virtually anything found on a plane, be it a broken wine bottle or a snapped-off length of plastic," says Smith. Our prohibitions on liquids are also silly, as "the threat of liquid explosives does exist, but it cannot be readily brewed from the kinds of liquids we have devoted most of our resources to keeping away from planes." We already prohibit combustible or unstable chemicals and aerosol containers of any kind in either checked or carry-on luggage. (Perhaps the TSA would consider that the terrorists have cooked up a time-release liquid bomb that lives in their carry-on luggage? They would, and probably have, but that would mean a level of inconvenience that is apparently more frightening than the prospect of a plane blowing up. The indication that this is possible tells us one of two things: either they are incompetent, or actual security isn't the real reason for their security measures.)

Article the Second! The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the TSA isn't just watching your shoes, your belt, your watch, the contents of your pockets, the inside of your carry-on, the inside of your checked luggage, and the connector ports of all your electronics. They're also watching your facial expressions:

Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.

TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program -- called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) -- that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent.

[...]

"In the SPOT program, we have a conversation with (passengers) and we ask them about their trip," said Maccario from his office in Boston. "When someone lies or tries to be deceptive, ... there are behavior cues that show it. ... A brief flash of fear."

A commenter at Boing Boing, the source of this article, posted the definition of "facecrime" from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is relevant here. But airports in Israel do the same thing -- not to scrutinize your facial expressions, but to check your answers. If you don't have ready answers for their questions, then they believe something's up. The same goes for crossing the border. On my way back from Canada, I was asked some simple questions like "Where did you stay?" and "What did you do?" As Maccario indicates, the officers weren't interested in my answers -- only in the fact that I had ready answers. They didn't look at my face, though. The belief that the face can somehow point out things about a person comes to us from physiognomy, an outdated "scientific" method in which a person's outer features are indicators of his or her personality. Recall that President Bush, years ago, looked into President Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw nothing but puppies and ponies. Non-science is not science!

Happy flying!