Watch your face in US airports

American TSA staff will soon be watching travelers' faces for telltale signs.  According to the Seattle PI some airport workers are scrutinizing our mugs to see if we betray hidden levels of fear or nervousness.  Now, for most of us there's nothing hidden about our feelings!  Experienced travelers spend a great deal of time in existential dread as we shamble from "lounge" seat to cramped airplane perch. 

But I've experienced something like this already.  Last year, in Philadelphia, I noticed a TSA group in front of my departure gate.  Which was unusual.  My first (and correct) response was, sadly, to look away, not make eye contact.  After a few minutes of that I became embarrassed at my own cowardice, and looked up at the staffers, and briefly made eye contact.  I was shortly thereafter searched.  Well, Philly is one of the worst US airports...

Comments

[Gardner]

I'm learning from Daniel Goleman's fascinating "Social Intelligence" that we cannot help being expressive, that in fact at a deep level we want to be expressive, because that's the only way we can reliably infer others' subjectivities and thus their intentions, beliefs, motivations, etc. Alas, airports, like many classrooms, now inspire studied impassivity--not even furtiveness!--and I wonder how far similar surveillance cultures will inspire such masking.

So much for intersubjectivity. Or perhaps the poker players are right, and there's always a "tell."

[Travel Guy]

There is always a tell but they're going to get way more false positives on this one than anything else. People wear their expressions on their faces all the time but very often the people who appear nervous are probably on their way to a big sales presentation or something.

[Bryan Alexander]

@Gardner, more surveillance, more masking - that's a grim but logical direction. I wonder if David Brin sees that ever changing course.

@Travel Guy, that's one thing I'm worried about. Heck air travel itself makes most of us nervous.