Odds Are, You Are Suspicious
When you get off a train, do you get off ahead of passengers? Or do you get off behind passengers? When you're going on a trip, do you come off as nervous? Or are you an unusually calm traveler? How about if you make a phone call at a station, do you look around? Or do you stare straight ahead?
If you don't know the answers to these questions, you'd better figure them out now. Because unless you get off in stride with other train passengers, live at the elusive intersection between anxiety and tranquility, and close your eyes during phone calls, you're a suspicious person subject to questioning by Amtrak police."
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
*While Amtrak certainly has an interest in keeping its passengers safe, it is using the same heavy-handed, dragnet approach that we've seen in many of the government's other counter-terrorism and drug trafficking prevention efforts. As we have seen with Suspicious Activity Reports and the TSA's SPOT program, reporting based on broad categories of "suspicious" behavior is problematic because it almost always results in racial and religious profiling, as well as the targeting of perfectly innocent activity. Most importantly, building mountains of irrelevant data is ultimately an ineffective law enforcement tactic."
https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty-criminal-law-reform/odds-are-you-are-suspicious
= new reply since forum marked as read
but would you mind accompanying myself and this rather large gent to my left to a secure area? We couldn't help but notice how calm you appear during your travels.
