Perhaps the agency's most interesting finding so far is that the shooters rarely made public threats. Instead, they tended to confide their intentions to a few select peers. There are more specific challenges to Mosaic's pedigree. The U.S. Marshals Service and the L.A. police department may swear by the earlier versions of Mosaic, but many psychologists insist it has not been through a proper scholarly review. De Becker says his method is scheduled to undergo two academic evaluations.
Many civil libertarians have a more pressing concern.
They fear the program will single out or profile students who are simply maladjusted but not menacing. And because schools use Mosaic to study kids without their knowledge, they may never know they are under suspicion. Students, he says, are not examined unless they single themselves out by making a threat. But in today's anxious classrooms, threats are often defined broadly. Phyllis Hodges, an assistant principal at Chicago's Von Steuben High School, used the program to examine a student who was constantly picked on by peers for being effeminate.