The Transportation Security Administration has little evidence that its airport passenger screening program, which some employees believe is a magnet for racial profiling and has cost taxpayers nearly one billion dollars, screens passengers objectively, says a report by the inspector general for the Homeland Security Department quoted by the New York Times. The “behavioral detection program” is supposed to rely on security officers who pull aside passengers who exhibit what are considered telltale signs of terrorists for additional screening and questioning. It is illegal to screen passengers because of their nationality, race, ethnicity, or religion. As a result of the TSA's ineffective oversight, it “cannot ensure that passengers at U.S. airports are screened objectively,” the report said. As recently as 2011, reports emerged that the program was being used to profile passengers at airports in Newark and Hawaii.In August, The Times reported that more than 30 officers at Logan International Airport in Boston had said that the program was being used to profile passengers like Hispanics traveling to Florida or blacks wearing baseball caps backward.