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El Al is often cited as an example in these discussions, and it's a pretty flawed one. The reason why profiling works (or at least works better) for El Al is t
by kgrin 17y ago
El Al is often cited as an example in these discussions, and it's a pretty flawed one. The reason why profiling works (or at least works better) for El Al is that the demographics of the average traveler to Israel are pretty consistent and predictable, which greatly reduces the search space.
For instance, many travelers to Israel go for at least tangentially religious reasons; it's common practice for El Al security to ask those folks some basic questions about the faith (logic: if the guy claiming to be making a religious trip doesn't know something any observant pre-teen would, that guy deserves a closer look).
That doesn't mean that everyone traveling to Israel is Jewish (clearly not the case!), or that it's really all about profiling. But having a more homogeneous and constrained baseline (in addition to a smaller country) makes the "let's ask you some questions and see if your story makes sense" approach considerably more scalable.
Why does country size matter? A guy says "I'm visiting friends... where? Comstock - it's near Sargent." Without Google Maps at the ready, it would be hard to know if that's a plausible travel plan; whereas in a country that's only 8,000 sq. mi., with fewer people than NYC - a security agent is more likely to know shenanigans when s/he hears it.
- siculars 17y agoEverything you mention is true including the readily apparent line of questioning for those traveling to Israel. What you should note, though, is not the acute subject of questioning but rather the method. A screener in any terminal in the world knows at the least two facts. One, the city of embarkation and two, the destination. With these two facts alone and not including any other known information, both overt and covert, a trained screener can weave together a battery of questions that would be quite difficult to answer untruthfully without rousing suspicion. I've had it done to me many times and no two times are the same. Always different. Again, it is the method that is important. A specific answer to a specific question in itself is not important, rather the exchange as a whole is what paints a picture of the one being questioned. Lets take your line of questioning - A guy says "I'm visiting friends... where? Comstock - it's near Sargent." Now the screener may not know where that is so lets go with that... Oh, Comstock? Where is that from (lets say) New York? How are you getting there? Is someone picking you up or are you renting a car? Who is picking you up? Do you have a rental car reservation? Where will you be staying when you get there? And on and on. This is how screeners are trained to question. They use the answers that you supply to continue probing until they are satisfied with the story as a whole.
- gommm 17y agoThat would suck for people like me who love going to a country to visit without making plans whatsoever :-)
- yardie 17y agoI believe at a minimum most VWF countries require you to have a place of stay while you are their. If you arrive without any hotel reservations, place to stay, or cruise itinerary, be prepared for 20 questions and an anal probe.
- gommm 17y agoSorry what does VWF mean? In my limited experience most asian countries don't really ask much when the address is not known...