Remember the TSA’s breathless announcement of its behavior detection system, in which government-trained Behavior Detection Officers would identify and thwart potential terrorists based on them being so shifty?

TSA’s BDO-trained security officers are screening travelers for involuntary physical and physiological reactions that people exhibit in response to a fear of being discovered.

Yeah, well, it turns out that Behavior Detection Officers — or BDOs, as they like to call themselves in an attempt to pose as serious and respectable law enforcement officers — have to detain or annoy more than 100 people to come up with one worth arresting:

A TSA program launched in early 2006 that looks for terrorists using a controversial surveillance method has led to more than 160,000 people in airports receiving scrutiny, such as a pat-down search or a brief interview. That has resulted in 1,266 arrests, often on charges of carrying drugs or fake IDs, the TSA said.

How does that lower-than-one-percent success rate compare with, say, just stopping people randomly, or stopping people wearing purple, or stopping people based on numerological or astrological principles? (I’m looking at you, you goddamn Pisceses!) Well, we don’t know, because TSA doesn’t conduct such inquiries. They just rely on the assessment of the guy in the poly-blend shirt whose Cracker Barrel assistant manager interview went poorly, based on his training by the people who make airport security run so smoothly. And meanwhile, subservience to government intrusion — including intrusion based on junk science incompetently applied — is further normalized among the populace.

Via BoingBoing.

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