WASHINGTON, July 13 (UPI) -- The Obama administration plans to spend huge sums on an airport security program that has yet to thwart a potential terror attack, ABC News reported Wednesday.
The report said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security already has spent about $750 million on the Screening of Passengers by Technique, or SPOT, program. The program trains airport security officials to look for "micro-expressions" of travelers that might show an intention to commit terror.
The department plans to pump an additional $254 million to the program in 2012, a report published Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office said.
The report's summary said the Department of Homeland Security has completed an initial study "to validate the scientific basis of the SPOT program," but more work is needed.
SPOT uses behavior observation and analysis techniques to identify potentially high-risk passengers.
In its evaluation in April this year, the department study "found that SPOT was more effective than random screening to varying degrees," the GAO report said. "For example, the study found that SPOT was more effective than random screening at identifying individuals who possessed fraudulent documents and individuals who were subsequently arrested. However, (the department's) study was not designed to fully validate whether behavior detection can be used to reliably identify individuals in an airport environment who pose a security risk."
The GAO said the Transportation Security Administration is "assessing the actions needed to address the study's recommendations. In September 2009, GAO reported that since 2004 TSA has taken actions to strengthen airport perimeter and access controls security by, among other things, deploying a random worker screening program; however, TSA has not conducted a comprehensive risk assessment or developed a national strategy."
TSA "is developing the assessment and strategy, but has not yet evaluated the need to assess airport vulnerabilities nationwide," the GAO said.
The GAO report said since 2004 the SPOT program has led to hundreds of arrests for suspected immigration violations, drug possession, false documents and other offenses, but not one was terror-related, ABC reported.
