As someone who has traveled with many “anxious” fliers, I hope the government does not waste too much money with this latest idea for screening for terrorists. The federal government is proposing to develop a machine that screens travelers for anxiety, using a remote camera system. I expect that even if this works to detect anxiety, screeners will find about one million people anxious because their flight is delayed, or they can’t stand airports, or they are terrified to fly, or they are about to spend Christmas with their crazy uncle, or they feel their taxes are too high, or they don’t like being scanned for anxiety– for every one person that is anxious because he/she harbors ill intent. And even if someone is anxious because they have ill intent, we will still need to find a weapon on them, or documents out of order, to make an arrest…both things that we are already checking for. The human beings already checking documents and looking for weapons are also very good at detecting anxiety; perhaps they need more training to know what questions to ask when someone looks nervous, and how to discern common travel stress from terrorist behavior. That way, maybe we can avoid queuing up at the anxiety detector–we don’t need one more line to stand in at the airport.

That’s my initial reaction.

What do you all think? Am I wrong? Can a machine like this make us safer for a fair price?

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