Passing through the Taiwan immigration I was reminded of how critical is the human element in security.
Many of us have worked in office buildings requiring electronic ID’s to enter…now admit how many of you have held a door or let someone in who didn’t have a badge that you didn’t know personally. Many people don’t want to feel rude or have an uncomfortable situation by saying, “I’m sorry but you don’t have an ID, please go to the security office. I can call them for you if you’d like” so we take the easy road of simply letting an unknown risk into our workspace.
Immigration and customs areas around the world continuously struggle with questions of how to keep the bad elements out, whether they are dangerous weapons, drugs or people intent on harm. The United States relies on customs screenings, passenger list screenings and other security measures to try filtering away the danger yet it isn’t perfect (see Christmas terrorist attempt over Detroit). No system is perfect. We will continue to be attacked from outside and inside by terrorists yet in the case of passengers arriving by plane I recall Israel having an excellent system which relied significantly on highly trained interviewers.
We Americans would object to the “interrogation-style” Israeli interviews but they are effective, much more than someone asking if I packed my bags and whether they were with me at all times. I recall being a student in Israel for a semester in college, returning to the US for a week and then having to reenter Israel to finish the semester. The interview I received upon trying to re-enter Israel was a complete grilling of “Why were you here the first time?”, “Why did you leave?”, “Why are you returning?”, “Who did you see when you were away?” and “Why do you barely speak Hebrew since you claimed to have bee in school here for 2 months learning the language?” My response, “I’m not very smart” elicited a momentary smile by the Israeli interviewer before she gritted her teeth and continued the questioning.
The human element of security is critical. It is slower, takes far more training and skill than someone looking at a video scan of my bags, but it is very powerful. There is little question in my mind that had Richard Reid or Abdul Abdulmutallab been grilled by my Israeli interviewer before boarding, they never would have made it on the plane. Yes, some terrorists will always slip through, but we should seriously consider investing the time and money to learn from Israel to leverage the human element of security.
Many of us have worked in office buildings requiring electronic ID’s to enter…now admit how many of you have held a door or let someone in who didn’t have a badge that you didn’t know personally. Many people don’t want to feel rude or have an uncomfortable situation by saying, “I’m sorry but you don’t have an ID, please go to the security office. I can call them for you if you’d like” so we take the easy road of simply letting an unknown risk into our workspace.
Immigration and customs areas around the world continuously struggle with questions of how to keep the bad elements out, whether they are dangerous weapons, drugs or people intent on harm. The United States relies on customs screenings, passenger list screenings and other security measures to try filtering away the danger yet it isn’t perfect (see Christmas terrorist attempt over Detroit). No system is perfect. We will continue to be attacked from outside and inside by terrorists yet in the case of passengers arriving by plane I recall Israel having an excellent system which relied significantly on highly trained interviewers.
We Americans would object to the “interrogation-style” Israeli interviews but they are effective, much more than someone asking if I packed my bags and whether they were with me at all times. I recall being a student in Israel for a semester in college, returning to the US for a week and then having to reenter Israel to finish the semester. The interview I received upon trying to re-enter Israel was a complete grilling of “Why were you here the first time?”, “Why did you leave?”, “Why are you returning?”, “Who did you see when you were away?” and “Why do you barely speak Hebrew since you claimed to have bee in school here for 2 months learning the language?” My response, “I’m not very smart” elicited a momentary smile by the Israeli interviewer before she gritted her teeth and continued the questioning.
The human element of security is critical. It is slower, takes far more training and skill than someone looking at a video scan of my bags, but it is very powerful. There is little question in my mind that had Richard Reid or Abdul Abdulmutallab been grilled by my Israeli interviewer before boarding, they never would have made it on the plane. Yes, some terrorists will always slip through, but we should seriously consider investing the time and money to learn from Israel to leverage the human element of security.
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Howard, yes, it is the human element that matters. However, if I recall the details correctly, it is not so much the the exact content of your answers that the Israeli's are looking for, but rather, *how* you answer the question. There is an additional layer of human element- it is not just the asking that needs to be in person, but it is the receipt of the answers that really require the human.
ReplyDeleteThe Israelis have a layered approach, starting even before you get to the airport. Passenger lists are checked well in advance and "interesting" individuals selected for "random" checks. Passengers are monitored as they arrive at the airport (3 hours early for El-Al flights), and trained spotters watch them in the queues. Any behavioral oddities (eg sweating, exhibiting unusual nervousness) garner special attention. Everyone gets interviewed in detail at the check-in desk and if there are any doubts then there are further interviews. The problem applying this model in the US is scalability, as Bruce Schneier discusses here: http://tinyurl.com/y86ka76
ReplyDeleteAn anecdote: A couple of years ago, my wife traveled to Tel-Aviv on business and her luggage went missing en route. It was a short trip so by the time of the return flighther luggage hadn't yet turned up, so she was traveling with carry-on only. As this was apparently deemed unusual, she got a 90 minute interview - polite, but VERY thorough. Same questions rephrased slightly to see if the answers were consistent. They don't take chances, but given the size of El-Al, they have the resources to do this and they are very good at it. The cost-benefit trade-off of implementing this in the US just would't make economic sense.
Great points about the challenges of scalability and the balance between economic expediency and safety. From my perspective as a nation will will almost always lean on the side of expediency due to our scale as well as priorities. For example, post Sept 11, the government told people to go back to the lower Manhattan and resume their normal lives in spite of the well documented air quality risks. Economic benefits trumped health safety.
ReplyDeleteOne of my key concerns isn't merely the addition of better safety measures but it is the elimination of useless safety measures, ones that cost time, money and clearly add no value.
@anonymous You're right that they are paying particular attention to how you answer, your body language your consistency...you need to remember your lies but the truth is easy to repeat.
ReplyDelete