The Transportation Security Administration is trying out a new tactic in the war against terrorism. Instead of keeping its intelligence information under wraps, it's making it available to 10,000 airport security workers in the hope that the knowledge will give them the power to spot the bad guys.

The employees getting the classified information include managers, supervisors and "behavior detection officers" who roam the airports looking for suspicious people. That's about 20 percent of TSA's airport workforce, but it doesn't include screeners who scan passengers and bags.

TSA looks at it this way: Giving its officers the information could help them to spot terrorists.

The details "give context to things they see every day which may otherwise not appear unusual" and let workers "exercise discretion" in dealing with travelers, TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne says. So far, 750 people have been cleared to get classified information, Payne said, according to an article in USA Today.

It strikes us that it's not a particularly good idea to parse out information to a few, but we'll be interested in seeing how this works and hope that it becomes an added tool to prevent a terrorist incident.

For more on TSA Intel
- see this USA Today article

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