If one's goal is to identify potential terrorists (those seeking to enter the United States to engage in potentially hostile activities), the first opportunity occurs when the potential terrorist attempts to enter the United States. The facts: Twenty-six al-Qaeda terrorist conspirators – eighteen Saudis, two Emiratis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese, one Moroccan, one Pakistani, and two Yemenis – sought to enter the United States for the specific purpose of carrying out a suicide mission. The first member of this team began to acquire the means to enter the United States two years and five months before the 9/11 attack.

Three of the conspirators were “known or knowable” by intelligence authorities as al-Qaeda terrorists in early 2000, but their biographic information was not fully developed or provided to border authorities for the watch list at U.S. consulates abroad (by State Department) and at the border (by Immigration and Customs border inspectors).

Three of the conspirators were carrying Saudi passports containing a “possible extremist” indicator present in the passports of many al-Qaeda and other terrorists entering the U.S. as early as the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. This indicator had not been analyzed by the CIA, FBI, or our border authorities for its significance.

Two of the conspirators were carrying passports that had been manipulated in a fraudulent manner, containing fraudulent entry-exit stamps (or cachets) probably inserted by al-Qaeda travel document forgers.

The conspirators began their attempts to acquire U.S. visas in April 1999. Two of the conspirators lied on their visa applications in detectable ways but were never questioned about these lies. Two conspirators were interviewed for reasons unrelated to terrorism. Most simply had their applications approved and their passports stamped with a U.S. visa. Consular officers were not trained to detect terrorists in a visa interview.

Once the operation was underway, the conspirators attempted to enter the U.S. 34 times over 21 months, through nine airports. They succeeded all but once. Border inspectors at U.S. airports were unaware of the potential significance of indicators of possible terrorist affiliation in the conspirators’ passports and had no information about fraudulent travel stamps possibly associated with al-Qaeda. No inspectors or agents were trained in terrorist travel intelligence or document practices. Few of the inspectors or agents had interviewing skills that were cultivated in any fashion beyond that received during on-the-job training. More importantly, the culture these inspectors worked in was one of travel facilitation and lax enforcement (with the exception of programs to interdict drug couriers and known criminals.)

Five of the conspirators attempting entry were referred by primary inspectors for a more intensive review by secondary inspectors. One terrorist pilot was referred at two entries, in one case by a Customs inspector trained to look for drug couriers, and in the other by an Immigration inspector thinking the pilot might be an intending immigrant. One pilot was referred for having the wrong visa and one non-pilot hijacker for failing to have a visa. Two others were referred for failing to complete their arrival and customs forms and for being unable to communicate with the inspectors.

Four conspirators were admitted after the secondary inspectors who interviewed them were unable to, or did not, verify information supplied by the operative, misunderstood the law, or failed to follow procedures. One was interviewed at length by a border inspector. The inspector concluded, on the basis of his hostile and arrogant behavior and contradictory statements, that he was unlikely to comply with U.S. immigration law and posed a risk. He was denied entry. The inspector was backed up by his superior, but acted in the face of a general expectation of leniency toward Saudi citizens at that airport.

These entries occurred during a period when approximately 20 million people applied for visas, and more than 10 million people came into the U.S. through 220 airports of entry.

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Immigration and Customs leadership jointly put in place their agencies’ most stringent security precautions, in the process nearly shutting down our borders; the backed-up traffic at the land borders caused a commercial crisis.

Under Justice Department direction, the FBI and the INS initiated a series of counterterrorism-related security programs using immigration law violations as a predicate to interview, detain, and in many cases deport aliens from countries with possible ties to al-Qaeda. Also, at the urging of the Justice Department, the State Department, together with the FBI, initiated a series of programs to heighten scrutiny of visa applicants from countries with an al-Qaeda presence.

The Human Audit, a behavior assessment and interviewing strategy, is a unique program of study that addresses the behavioral responses that people have to stress encountered during the course of the communication process. Once the student learns to identify the behaviors associated with people attempting to practice deception, he/she is then exposed to rapport-based interviewing techniques. These techniques are designed to teach the student to resolve incompatibilities between non-verbal deceptive behavior, deceptive verbal statements, and psychological responses by employing rapport-based elicitation techniques complementary to the interviewing skills routinely employed by law enforcement and intelligence officers during the course of their daily activities.

How Is the DDER Program Facilitated?

The DDER Program consists of one day of classroom training and two days of scenario-based role playing. During the classroom portion of the training, students are exposed to behavioral assessment and interviewing strategies. With the behavioral assessment portion of the program, students are exposed to the psychology and physiology that results when people attempt to practice deception. A structured methodology for evaluating, defining, and measuring behavioral responses is presented, and students are exposed to those behaviors that are generally indicative of both the truthful person and the person who is practicing deception.

During the second part of the class, the students are introduced to rapport-based, non-coercive information elicitation techniques. Once they recognize deceptive behaviors, the students are taught to strategize and identify commonalities of the person and elicit information designed to resolve the inconsistencies between what they are saying and the messages they are conveying behaviorally. Students are taught to recognize and deal with the denials and protests that are routinely offered up by a person practicing deception. Students are introduced to the impact that culture and emotion have on the outcome of the interview. Students are taught to elicit information by building elicitation themes that offer the person the opportunity to acknowledge their wrongdoing without losing face.

Throughout the classroom session, students are encouraged to participate. Personal experiences and questions that relate to the subject matter are discussed and resolved. Video vignettes illustrating the principles taught in the class are reviewed. Finally, the students are prepared for the practical exercises they will be exposed to over the next two days.

During Days Two and Three, students are divided into teams of four to six people. Within these groups, two-person teams are selected to conduct interviews with subject matter expert role players. On each two-person team, there is a Primary and a Secondary officer. The Primary officer leads the interview, while the Secondary officer looks through the person’s passport and travel documents and takes notes. During each morning and afternoon session, there are two 20-minute sessions and one 10-minute session during which interview teams are tasked with discovering the role-players intent behind wanting to come to the United States. The interviews are audio- and video-recorded and are reviewed with team members after the interview. The subject matter expert role-players also offer feedback to individual officers at the conclusion of their interviews.

During this exercise, there are four role-players from various parts of the Middle East and Near Eastern Asia. Each has a different story to tell, and each respond to the officers in a fashion befitting the treatment they receive. Each team is exposed to each of the four role-players over the course of the two days. At the end of the second day, the role-players, team coaches, and instructors provide feedback to the group as a whole.

We have found that by combining the one day of classroom training with two follow-up days of role-playing, the officers have the opportunity to practice newly-acquired skills and techniques. This hands-on activity serves to reinforce the learning experience of the first day. Post-class evaluation has resulted in consistently high marks for the training, with the only criticism being that the two days of role-playing simply isn’t enough.

To date, we have provided a variety of customers with training based on The Human Audit. Whether it’s law enforcement activities, intelligence-gathering operations, or activities involving business and commercial endeavors, students employing our behavioral analysis methodology and elicitation techniques have found themselves better prepared to ferret out the truth behind their competitors’, clients’, and customers’ silent intentions, providing them with better information and better decision-making capability.