Guidelines On Who Might Be Suspicious: Too Nervous? Too Calm? Blending In? Standing Out? It's All Suspicious

from the everyone-is-a-suspect dept

The ACLU FOIA'd up some guidelines for Amtrak staff concerning how they judge whether or not passengers are "suspicious" in terms of being "indicative of criminal activity" and the list seems fairly broad:

• Unusual nervousness of traveler
• Unusual calmness or straight ahead stare
• Looking around while making telephone call(s)
• Position among passengers disembarking (ahead of, or lagging behind passengers)
• Carrying little or no luggage
• Purchase of tickets in cash
• Purchase tickets immediately prior to boarding

Radley Balko takes this list and then compares it to a list put together by James Bovard concerning what the courts have said is conduct that shows "reasonable suspicion" for law enforcement to dig deeper:

• Being the first person off a plane
• Being the last person off a plane
• Someone authorities believe has tried to blend in to the middle of exiting passengers
• Booking a nonstop flight
• Booking a flight with a layover
• Traveling alone
• Traveling with a companion
• People who appear nervous
• People who appear “too calm”
• Merely flying to or from a city known to be a major thoroughfare in the drug pipeline

The message is pretty clear: everyone is a suspect. And anything you might do to look not like a suspect is also suspicious. In fact, you're going to be pretty hard pressed not to look suspicious under these kinds of rules, which is kind of the point.

Part of the problem is the myth out there that there's a legitimate ability to spot "suspicious" people. Sure, there are some extreme cases where people act strange before committing a criminal act, but the idea that you can scan a group of people and spot the people planning out some sort of criminal activity is a concept greatly exaggerated (often by Hollywood), but it inevitably leads to this situation where law enforcement can more or less pick and choose when they suddenly think you're "acting suspicious."

Filed Under: behavioral monitoring, criminal activity, guidelines, law enforcement, reasonable suspicion
Companies: amtrak