The Intercept obtained a copy of the TSA's not-classified (but not publicly available) list of rules for spotting terrorists at the airport. It's a set of 92 criteria called "Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques," or SPOT. And it's utter BS.
Doing any of these things in the security line before your red eye? TERRORIST.
The 92-point checklist is divided into various categories with a point score for each. Those categories include a preliminary “observation and behavior analysis,” and then those passengers pulled over for additional inspection are scored based on two more categories: whether they have “unusual items,” and a final category for “signs of deception”.
And here's the real kicker: In 2013, the Department of Homeland Security admitted that TSA had failed to evaluate SPOT, and "cannot ensure that passengers at United States airports are screened objectively, show that the program is cost-effective, or reasonably justify the program’s expansion." Yet the TSA has continue to train and deploy thousands of Behavior Detection Officers, costing taxpayers more than $900 million.