Airport security needs multiple layers.

• Position: YOUR LIFE - Brief article

Airport security needs multiple layers The effective use of multiple layers of intelligence gathering, including existing behavioral identification programs, could have excluded the murderous Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from travel before he got anywhere near Northwest Right 253 on Christmas Day--so says University at Buffalo (N.Y) behavioral scientist and security researcher Mark G. Frank, who explains that, although Mutallab made his way through some security levels, "Behavioral science techniques could have detected him once he was at the airport.

"There have been many scientific advances in technology coupled with understanding such people and their behavior--and programs exist that put that into action--to help identify them. Unfortunately, they are not being used widely enough.

"No single security technique, on its own, is a panacea, although that would be great, but no technique need be 100% accurate to be deployed effectively. Each imperfect layer complements the next because the goals of security screening are actually more modest than people assume," adds Frank, who has advised on behavioral identification...