TSA Expanding ‘Chat-Downs’ Experiment to Detroit Today

U.S. Transportation Security Administration workers today will begin interviewing passengers entering Delta Air Lines Inc.’s terminal in Detroit in an expansion of its so-called behavior detection program, Greg Soule, a TSA spokesman, said.

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport joins Boston’s Logan International as a test site for the program, in which TSA employees briefly talk to passengers to assess whether they might be involved in terrorist activities. The technique has been called “chat-downs” by Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, ranking Democrat on the House homeland security committee, who has questioned whether it works.