Read Their Lips

John Tierney of the New York Times discusses the TSA's spending on "behavior detection" training for its officers. Numerous academic studies, and now a GAO report, indicate that no support exists for the proposition that we can tell from body language (as opposed to verbal cues) that someone is lying or telling the truth. That TSA staff want to be able to tell, in a minute or less perhaps, whether someone is a threat, is understandable. But that staff can do so by watching that person's behavior as opposed to talking to that person? Psychologists say there's no credible evidence that it's probable that we can do so effectively enough to warrant the kind of resources we've been putting into the kind of training we've been authorizing. Behavior detection training? Not necessarily a magic cure there.