A new report claims the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) trained workers at SeaWorld, Disney World, and Busch Gardens in using behavior detection techniques to identify potential terrorists.
According to The Intercept, part of the TSA's $900 million behavior detection program involved theme parks.
Last month,
The Intercept obtained a copy of a TSA document that listed dozens of behaviors TSA agents are taught to look for at airports.
The website claims in its most recent report that agents trained security personnel at theme parks using the same list.
"TSA has trained security teams from SeaWorld, Disney World and Busch Gardens to use the same checklist of behavior indicators, which includes 'wearing a disguise,' 'whistling,' 'exaggerated yawning' and 'excessive laughter,' according to interviews and documents obtained by The Intercept," reads the story.
Called the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, or SPOT, the program is now called the Behavior Detection Analysis, reports The Intercept. The report says the TSA trained local Florida law enforcement and security representatives from SeaWorld, Disney World, and Busch Gardens in 2009.
"They have plainclothes people at SeaWorld and Disney doing the same behavior detection, looking for the same indicators we look for at the airport," an unnamed source told The Intercept.
The same system is used at Orlando International Airport and other airports across the country.
The TSA has come under fire in recent weeks because of misconduct. In one case that was reported in March,
TSA officers permitted a former member of a domestic terror group to use airport security fast lanes last summer.
In another incident reported this week, two TSA agents at Denver International Airport were fired after partaking in a conspiracy that allowed
a male agent to grope male passengers under the cloak of a security pat-down.
Earlier this year,
it was reported that the TSA was ill-equipped to detect and stop a "thermite-based incendiary device," which the FBI called "the greatest potential incendiary threat to aviation."
The TSA was formed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and operates under the Department of Homeland Security.
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