Screening for terrorists – interviews

[Argus]

18 hours ago, Yzermandius19 said:

Israel has plenty of terrorist attacks against it, and plenty of immigration issues,

Those terrorist attacks don't come from people who have passed the interviews.

[Rue]

19 hours ago, Yzermandius19 said:

Israel has plenty of terrorist attacks against it, and plenty of immigration issues, the interviews are not as impactful as you think they are.

I never said we must invite everyone into the country with open arms, I said throwing tons of resources into interviews or values tests will not dramatically reduce immigration problems the way you seem to think they will. You have too much faith in government to address these issues, to the point where you think the only reason there is a problem is simply because there is no will to fix it, instead of government not being that good at addressing the issue in the first place.

Nowhere in the world is government as good at fixing these issues with interviews or values test as you claim would be the case if the government simply cared enough, it is naive wishful thinking on your part that things will go so swimmingly if the will of the government, proper funding and training were at ideal levels for interviews or values tests.

There is no such thing as interviewing a terrorist to find out if they are one and certainly the IDF does not rely on it and never has.

What happened on this forum was a discussion about screening prospective immigrants to determine if they would have compatible Canadian values. It was pointed out in regards to that suggestion if you ask people questions in an interview about their "values":

1-trying to determine what questions to ask would soon break down as no one can agree what Canadian values are let alone what questions about such values would be relevant;

2-anyone can prep answers;

3-there is no accurate lie detection method-lie detection picks up when someone's heart beat suddenly changes when asked  a question-this method assumes the person is lying if their heart rate goes up  but heart rate can also go up if the person feels threatened by the questioner, has had too much coffee, is worried about his answer not pleasing the questioner, etc.;

4-just because someone believes in Canadian values or says they do won't necessarily make them go on to conform to these values;

5-psychometric testing can't definitely say you have any kind of Canadian values-they can at best point out repeating patterns of mannerisms, or behaviours, or repeating choices of references and then through questioning other than asking about Canadian values, come up with a general guideline as to the person's personality but even personality types are not absolute in that people have many personality traits from different groups, just some are more dominant and in fact each personality is as unique as a snowflake or fingerprint and personalities and predicating whether someone will then be a good Canadian  can not happen, its not designed nor can it be designed to test for that.

Now this  new thread says we should interview terrorists or screen for them. Easy to say, but how....that is the question.

When trying to look for terrorists of course asking them questions is NOT and could not be effective by itself. To detect whether someone is a terrorist, one has to use specific forensic techniques to detect certain kinds of behavioural tendencies and they are never absolutely reliable. These screening techniques constantly change because all counter-intelligence techniques have an expiry date-once they are used its only a matter of time until they are detected and therefore someone can then learn to manipulate them and so as a precaution must be expired before that familiarity might kick in.

The kind of profiling Israel does or the British did in Northern Ireland or some other nations have done faced with terrorism was not simply sitting down with someone and saying hello Abdul do you hate Jews...do you hate Wasps...how do you feel about multiple wiives Abdul. A lot of people who puff themselves up in interviews are harmless and simply over-compensating to make up for the fact they are in fact jello. The phenomena of people turning themselves in to confess to murders they never did is a variation of this.

Israeli counter intelligence works as a general rule where there is a connection between the person being observed and a terrorist organization or exremists through some past event or incident that was recorded. No Israeli expert can guarantee you they can catch a terrorist who has never had a connection to a terror organization or associated with known extremists and already been put on their radar so to speak.

Counter intelligence is about building up a history on someone you noticed in the past and recorded , not someone out of the blue.

This is why lone wolf terrorists with no connections can escape detection.

Further the kind of techniques used to look for a potential terrorist in a crowd is completely different than trying to screen someone one at a time-you can't use it in a room with one person. The reality is the best detector is one's own gut in any situation and even then you might be wrong or right.

So I second your comments as would most soldiers. They wish detection of terrorists was that easy. Trying to pick someone out of a crowd or on the street is not something one does easily. Its why soldiers and police are always second guessed.

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Rue

[Yzermandius19]

5 hours ago, Argus said:

Those terrorist attacks don't come from people who have passed the interviews.

Yes they do. Interviews do not stop all terrorist attacks fool.

[Army Guy]

On 1/29/2020 at 6:16 PM, kactus said:

Interesting article...IMO this is not enough to decipher who is lying and who isn’t. I mean how many times do you see people get away fooling the lie detector machines. People learn not to fidget, look away as a mechanism to come across as genuine and you could potentially see this happening at airports. Perhaps the amateurs fail the test but he ones that have the intention may get away with the lie. In short....observation of human behaviour may be a better technique to sift through more bad apples but IMO it can still fail when these techniques are available to the public domain....

I agree someone can be trained to fool lie detectors, hide those tell tale signs, but how many normal terrorist have that training, how many of those that have left Canada for Syria for terrorist activates and  have had access to this kind of training...so it could be used for the other 90 % of terrorist that don't have the training , the professionals will continue to walk freely in and out of customs , and immigration offices.. And nothing is infallible, but what is in place right now... And what other tool do you have when they've lost their Passport and ID, their is no cooperation or access to their records from hostile states to check criminal records, past behavior, ie North Korea, Syria, Iraq, the list goes on....  

[Army Guy]

On 1/29/2020 at 6:34 PM, Yzermandius19 said:

Israel has plenty of terrorist attacks against it, and plenty of immigration issues, the interviews are not as impactful as you think they are.

I never said we must invite everyone into the country with open arms, I said throwing tons of resources into interviews or values tests will not dramatically reduce immigration problems the way you seem to think they will. You have too much faith in government to address these issues, to the point where you think the only reason there is a problem is simply because there is no will to fix it, instead of government not being that good at addressing the issue in the first place.

Nowhere in the world is government as good at fixing these issues with interviews or values test as you claim would be the case if the government simply cared enough, it is naive wishful thinking on your part that things will go so swimmingly if the will of the government, proper funding and training were at ideal levels for interviews or values tests.

Sure it does, but not on any of their aircraft since before I can remember, a much safer record than say, most other middle eastern countries, most western countries....

My point is this, I'm not saying these techniques are the end all be all, what I'm saying is they are better than the tools we have right now, and if the only prevent one attack , then it is money and time well invested. I don't want government to solve these problems I want them to provide the will to fund and train those hired into these jobs....thats all...And saying there is no problem well, thats just sticking your head in the sand, troops that went over to Syria to pick Justins 30,000 new Canadians had very little screening, or security back ground checks done, because it was impossible to do in the time frame they had, I get it , that was a one off situation, but it would not matter if those interviews were done in Canada, they did not have access to the proper info they needed to do back ground checks....so I know you don't like this solution of interviews, what is the proper tool to make sure we are at least providing some sort of security back ground check ? … And if something does happen, and the question is asked what are we doing in regards to vetting incoming people into the country.... would you accept stop putting your faith into the government to solve security problems, and we did not want to waste resources because it produces little results, as answers to your question WHY is it your family is now gone , victim to an attack..

And perhaps I am naïve, as I have no experience in the immigration of customs field, but I'm sure like ever government dept. in Canada that is starved of funding and training , that one of their recommendations would be for the government to find the will to do something about this issue, and let the experts seek out the solutions. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Army Guy

[Rue]

On 1/30/2020 at 12:02 PM, Argus said:

Those terrorist attacks don't come from people who have passed the interviews.

Yes unfortunately.

[Rue]

17 hours ago, Army Guy said:

Sure it does, but not on any of their aircraft since before I can remember, a much safer record than say, most other middle eastern countries, most western countries....

My point is this, I'm not saying these techniques are the end all be all, what I'm saying is they are better than the tools we have right now, and if the only prevent one attack , then it is money and time well invested. I don't want government to solve these problems I want them to provide the will to fund and train those hired into these jobs....thats all...And saying there is no problem well, thats just sticking your head in the sand, troops that went over to Syria to pick Justins 30,000 new Canadians had very little screening, or security back ground checks done, because it was impossible to do in the time frame they had, I get it , that was a one off situation, but it would not matter if those interviews were done in Canada, they did not have access to the proper info they needed to do back ground checks....so I know you don't like this solution of interviews, what is the proper tool to make sure we are at least providing some sort of security back ground check ? … And if something does happen, and the question is asked what are we doing in regards to vetting incoming people into the country.... would you accept stop putting your faith into the government to solve security problems, and we did not want to waste resources because it produces little results, as answers to your question WHY is it your family is now gone , victim to an attack..

And perhaps I am naïve, as I have no experience in the immigration of customs field, but I'm sure like ever government dept. in Canada that is starved of funding and training , that one of their recommendations would be for the government to find the will to do something about this issue, and let the experts seek out the solutions. 

The biggest need is exchange of information between countries that can get to the Canadian Border Security Officer at the Port of Entry so that when he does the initial two stage screening interview (which is of course not  in depth) he or she is better equipped to look for red flags

In that regard facial recognition programs where you plug someone's face into a program to see if it matches known terrorist or criminal faces is expensive software. DNA testing using the same principles also can be done. Both those kinds of screening are the most accurate but I am not sure how it could be to do them with everyone entering Canada. 

All I know is we rely on the Canadian Border Security Officers right now on the front lines with their two stage screening which is as they will tell you the best we have and so they would like better intelligence or security background info to help them look for red flags and that then gets into a dollar and cents argument about how much money the government wants to spend on such software.

[Yzermandius19]

21 hours ago, Army Guy said:

And perhaps I am naïve, as I have no experience in the immigration of customs field, but I'm sure like ever government dept. in Canada that is starved of funding and training , that one of their recommendations would be for the government to find the will to do something about this issue, and let the experts seek out the solutions. 

Lack of funding is not the issue with the government, how they use the funding is the issue with government. Doesn't matter how much you give them, they will waste it and demand more money to waste, claiming the only reason things didn't get solved is they are still underfunded. If you don't give in to their demands, they pretend it's because you don't care about the problem, rather than not wanting to throw more money away just so they can keep wasting it.

More funding is not the solution, less waste is the solution. Looking for answers in more government funding will simply result in disappointing results, even if you get the desired funding levels. Those funds will be wasted to justify the existence of the bureaucracy, if the problem could be solved with proper funding, then they'll be putting themselves out of work by spending it that way, so they never do. The bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Yzermandius19

[Army Guy]

2 hours ago, Yzermandius19 said:

Lack of funding is not the issue with the government, how they use the funding is the issue with government. Doesn't matter how much you give them, they will waste it and demand more money to waste, claiming the only reason things didn't get solved is they are still underfunded. If you don't give in to their demands, they pretend it's because you don't care about the problem, rather than not wanting to throw more money away just so they can keep wasting it.

More funding is not the solution, less waste is the solution. Looking for answers in more government funding will simply result in disappointing results, even if you get the desired funding levels. Those funds will be wasted to justify the existence of the bureaucracy, if the problem could be solved with proper funding, then they'll be putting themselves out of work by spending it that way, so they never do. The bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Sounds like Chretien, when he once told the media they will never be happy with what you give them , they will always want more... mean while that period of time was known as the dark ages for DND and most other governmental departments, were cut to the bone to fund social programs and Chretien's legacy programs. And I'm not going to tell you there is no waste, it is the way all the departments are designed, with no incentives to save funding, but that is not the major hold back, one our purchasing policies and how we spend tax payers dollars  needs to be over hauled, next our elected figures need to take a step back from the whole process, there is no need for a politician with no experience in say military or policing should be picking out that equipment, next get rid of the damn need for having it built in Canada or having equal offsets.. All of this was suppose to be fixed by Justin, and many others before him... but there is no will to...and Canadians don't care..

Today however the government wants you to think the depts. are well funded, DND has returned bils every year,  because of governmental red tape, and once it is returned it's free game for the government to use as they will...because it is designed that way....all we need is the will to change it cut the red tape and move on....