You Look Too Calm. What Are You, a Terrorist? Now You Look Nervous, Terrorist.

Look too calm, you’re
suspicious. Look too nervous, you’re suspicious. These
contradictory assumptions are just several transportation
guidelines on “reporting suspicious activity,” revealed by an
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request.

They comes from an
employee document for Amtrak, which is publicly funded. These
are signs that you should be paranoid of your fellow Americans, and
call the police on them:

• Evasive path through train station
• Carrying little or no luggage
• Last minute reservation
• Traveling by an unusual itinerary (multi-changes in
  reservations)
• Carrying unusually large amount of currency
• Purchase of tickets in cash
• Purchase tickets immediately prior to boarding
• 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)

So, Amtrak travelers, make sure you walk straight, travel
straight, look straight ahead but don‘t look
straight ahead, keep pace with the rest of us, carry just the right
amount of clothes, and wipe that look of fear or curiosity or
contentment off your face, or else the terrorists win.

The ACLU
explains that it made this FOIA request because it “has
received reports from individuals wrongfully searched and arrested
on Amtrak trains,” and wanted to know what policies led to these
arrests.

Amtrak has a “See Something, Say Something” campaign like the
Department of Homeland Security, and like the Transportation
Security Agency, Amtrak’s “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.”

The ACLU points out several stupid cases that make no one safer:
one woman was arrested for talking to loudly, and a photographer
was arrested while participating in Amtrak’s annual “Picture our
Train” competition.