That pesky amendment between three and five

WHO can quarrel with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) taking a "risk-based, intelligence-driven security approach", in which "expanded behavioral analysis techniques are used to determine if a traveller should be referred for additional screening at the checkpoint"? That is what they claimed specially trained "Behaviour Detection Officers" (BDOs) were doing in a pilot programme at Boston's Logan Airport. Passengers could expect to have a brief, "casual greeting" conversation with a BDO, after which "the officer will use his/her specialized training to gather information to make a more informed assessment regarding whether to refer the passenger for additional screening" (sort of like I use my "specialised training" as an editor to surmise that the above phrase was written by someone paid by the preposition). It turns out that the kinds of behaviours that resulted in passengers getting additional screening were things such as walking while black, breathing while Latino and trying to board an aircraft while being Middle Eastern. These allegations came not from the outside (or, speaking as a swarthy man who often travels alone and is often selected for additional screening, not only from the outside) but from TSA officers themselves, who approached the ACLU to complain that rampant racial profiling was making their stated mission more difficult.

And that mission, let's remember, is not finding drugs or contraband or warrants or immigration scofflaws, it is, or at least was supposed to be, preventing terrorism. The TSA was created two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 in order to bolster security on America's transport systems. With that in mind, it is not entirely accurate to complain of mission creep when TSA agents show up at train and bus stations. It is accurate, however, to complain when the TSA searches passengers after they have completed their train journeys. And it is accurate—necessary, even—to complain that the TSA has become simply another auxiliary police unit, some of whose officers undergo a scant nine hours of training, who appear relatively unencumbered by the fourth amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, and who, worst of all, are subject to the same pressure for increased arrests and referrals as other police forces. Of course, buried in this stat-juking practice is a serious problem: by what data does one judge the efficacy of a police force? It cannot simply be declines in the crime rate, for that is influenced by numerous factors, policing being just one. But it cannot be numbers of arrests, either, because if it's arrests you want then arrests—valid or not, beneficial or not—you shall have. This is how America's jails have grown full to bursting: the purpose of law enforcement has become enforcement and punishment, not citizen safety (or only secondarily citizen safety).

The standard response to search complaints is that you implicitly accept the TSA's terms by purchasing an airline ticket and entering an airport; if you don't like it, don't fly. But the TSA can also be found at train and bus stations, on roads and even at non-transport events such as football games. I suppose people who value their fourth amendment rights can just stay home.

(Photo credit: AFP)

via Democracy in America http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/08/transportation-security-administration?fsrc=gn_ep